fen'
I.I- i I
1 ofteu tried, and very nearly succeeded, in catching these
birds by their legs. Fonnerlv the birds appear to have
been even tamer than at present. Cowley* (in the year
K;84) 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 tire at them, whereby they were
rendered more shy.” Dampiert (in tho same year) also says
that a man iu a morning’s walk might kill si.x or seven dozen
of these birds. At present, although certainly very tanic,
they do not ahght on people’s arms ; nor do they suffer tliem-
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 delight 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 hilled the doves
and finches as they came to drink. He had already procured
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 disposition
among its birds. The extraordinary tameness of the
dark-coloured Furnarius has been remarked by Pernety,
Lesson, and otlier voyagers. It is not, however, peculiar
to that bird: the Caracara, snipe, upland and lowland
* C ow ley ’s Vo y ag e , p . 10, in D in n p ie r ’s C o lle e tio n o f Voyages,
f D a n jp te r 's Voyage, vol. i., p. 103.
goose, tlirush, Embcriza, and oven some true hawks, are
all more or less tame. Botli hawks and foxes are present;
and as the birds are so tame, we may infer that the absence
of all rapacious animals at the Galapagos, is not the cause of
their tameness there. The geese at the Falklands, hy the
precaution they take in building on the islets, show that
they arc awai'c of their danger from the foxes ; but they are
not by this rendered wild towards man. This tameness of the
liirds, especially the waterfowl, is strongly contrasted with
the habits of the same species in Tierra del Fuego, where
for ages ]iast they have been persecuted by the wild inhabitants.
In the Falklands, the sportsman may sometimes
kill more of the upland geese in one day, than he is able to
carry home; whereas in Tierra del Fuego, it is nearly as
difficult to kill one, as it is in England of the common
wild species.
In the time of Pernety* (1763), all the birds appear to
have been much tamer than at present. Pernety states that
the Furnarius would almost perch on his finger; and that witli
a wand he killed ten in half an hour. At that period, the
birds must have been about as tame as they now are at the
Galapagos. They appear to have learnt caution more
quickly at the Falklands than at the latter place, and they
have had proportionate means of experience; for besides
frequent visits from vessels, the islands have been at intervals
colonized during the whole period.
Even formerly, when all the birds were so tame, by
Pernety’s account it was impossible to kill the black-
necked swan. It is rather an interesting fact, that this is a
bird of passage, and therefore brings with it the wisdom
learnt in foreign countries.
I have not met with any account of the land birds bemg so
tame, in any other quarter of the world, as at the Galapagos
and Falkland Islands. And it may be observed that of the
few archipelagoes of any size, which when discovered were
* P e rn e ty , X'oyage a u x l ie s M a lm iin e s , v o l.ii., p . 20.