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Show 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." Dampiert (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 suffer themselves 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 knoc.king 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 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 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. t Dampier's Voyage, vol. i., p. 103. Oct. 1835. TAME:'IlESS OF BIRDS. 477 goose, thrush, Emberiza, and even some true hawks, are all more or l~ss tame. Both hawks and foxes are present; and as the buds are so tame, we may infer that the absence of all rapacious animals at the Galapagos, is not the cause of their ta~eness there. . The ~e~se at the Falklands, by the precautiOn they take m bmldmg on the islets, show that they are .aware of thei~ danger from the foxes; but they are not by this rendered Wild towards man. This tameness of the birds, especially the waterfowl, is strongly contrasted with the habits of the same species in Tierra del Fuego, where for ages past they have been persecuted by the wild inhab~ tants. 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 Furnari us would almost perch on his finger; and that with a wand he killed ten in half an hour. At'' that period the birds must have been about as tame as the; now are a~ 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 blacknecked 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 being 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 * Pemety, Voyage aux Iles Malouines, vol. ii., p. 20. |
