BY A. 11. KISSACK, ESQ. 



185 



young birds being hatched out each year, but that the natives are 

 fully alive to the benefit which they derive from this system of 

 bird preservation, and are cognizant of the great di-ain which 

 takes place on the supply annually available is very certain ; so 

 much so indeed they have considerably greater notions of their 

 exchangeable value of late years. At one time a stick of tobacco 

 would procure twenty eggs, and now only three or four. 



That so-called savages are fond of keeping and taming animals 

 of all kinds is well known, and has been alluded to by several 

 wi-iters, notably by Galton (Ethnol. Soc, Dec. 22, 1863) and 

 Darwin ("Animal and Plants, etc." Vol. II, p. 144, note) that 

 this predilection has been turned to such profitable account by 

 any of them as in the present instance has been seldom if ever 

 related. We have here another instance of how domestication 

 of animals has been probably brought about, i.e., by their having 

 acquired, or being naturally endowed, in the first instance with 

 fearlessness of man. 



