may be used, displayed on these small, barren, and rocky islands; and
still more so, at its diverse yet analogous action on points so near
each other. I have said that the Galapagos Archipelago might be called
a satellite attached to America, but it should rather be called a group
of satellites, physically similar, organically distinct, yet intimately
related to each other, and all related in a marked, though much lesser
degree, to the great American continent.
I will conclude my description of the natural history of these islands,
by giving an account of the extreme tameness of the birds.
This disposition is common to all the terrestrial species; namely, to
the mocking-thrushes, the finches, wrens, tyrant-flycatchers, the dove,
and carrion-buzzard. All of them are often approached sufficiently
near to be killed with a switch, and sometimes, as I myself tried, with
a cap or hat. A gun is here almost superfluous; for with the muzzle I
pushed a hawk off the branch of a tree. One day, whilst lying down, a
mocking-thrush alighted on the edge of a pitcher, made of the shell of
a tortoise, which I held in my hand, and began very quietly to sip the
water; it allowed me to lift it from the ground whilst seated on the
vessel: 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 "Turtledoves
were so tame, that they would often alight on 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." Dampier also, in the same year, says that a man in a morning's
walk might kill six or seven dozen of these doves. At present,
although certainly very tame, they do not alight on people's arms, nor
do they suffer themselves to be killed in such large numbers. It is
surprising that they have not become wilder; for these islands during
the last hundred and fifty years have been frequently visited by
bucaniers and whalers; and the sailors, wandering through the wood in
search of tortoises, always take cruel delight in knocking down the
little birds. These birds, although now still more persecuted, do not
readily become wild. 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 that he had constantly been in the habit of waiting by this well
375