476 



GALAPAGOS ARCHIPELAGO. 



Oct. 1835, 



I often tried^ and very nearly succeeded^ in catching these 

 birds by their legs. Formerly the birds appear to have 

 been even tamer than at present. Cowley* (in the year 

 1684) says that the Turtle-doves were so tame that they 

 would often alight upon our hats and arms^ so as that we 

 could take them alive : they not fearing man^ until such time 

 as some of our company did fire at them^ whereby they were 

 rendered more shy.'^ Dampierf (in the same year) also says 

 that a man in a morning's walk might kill six or seven dozen 

 of these birds. At present, although certainly very tame, 

 they do not alight on people's arms ; nor do they sufler them- 

 selves to be killed in such numbers. It is surprising that 

 the change has not been greater ; for these islands during the 

 last hundred and fifty years, have been frequently visited by 

 bucaniers and whalers ; and the sailors, wandering through 

 the woods in search of tortoises, always take dehght in / 

 knocking down the little birds. 



These birds, although much persecuted, do not become 

 wild in a short time : in Charles Island, which had then been 

 colonized about six years, I saw a boy sitting by a well 

 with a switch in his hand, with which he killed the doves 

 and finches as they came to drink. He had already pro- 

 cured a little heap of them for his dinner ; and he said he 

 had constantly been in the habit of waiting there for the 

 same purpose. We must conclude that the birds, not 

 having as yet learnt that man is a more dangerous animal 

 than the tortoise, or the amblyrhyncus, disregard us, in 

 the same manner as magpies in England do the cows and 

 horses grazing in the fields. 



The Falkland Islands offer a second instance of this dispo- 

 sition among its birds. The extraordinary tameness of the 

 dark-coloured Furnarius has been remarked by Pernety, 

 Lesson, and other voyagers. It is not, however, peculiar 

 to that bird : the Caracara, snipe, upland and lowland 



* Cowley's Voyage, p. 10, in Dampier's Collection of Voyages, 

 f Dampier's Voyage, vol. i., p. 103. 



