The intelligence, docility, and attachment to man
displayed by the chakar in a domestic state, with
perhaps other latent aptitudes only waiting to be
developed by artificial selection, seem to make this
species one peculiarly suited for man’s protection,
without which it must inevitably perish. It is
sad to reflect that all our domestic animals have
descended to us from those ancient times which we are
accustomed to regard as dark or barbarous, while the
effect of our modern so-called humane civilization
has been purely destructive to animal life. Not
one type do we rescue from the carnage going on at
an ever-increasing rate over all the globe. To
Australia and America, North and South, we look in
vain for new domestic species, while even from Africa,
with its numerous fine mammalian forms, and where England
has been the conquering colonizing power for nearly
a century, we take nothing. Even the sterling
qualities of the elephant, the unique beauty of the
zebra, appeal to us in vain. We are only teaching
the tribes of that vast continent to exterminate a
hundred noble species they would not tame. With
grief and shame, even with dismay, we call to mind
that our country is now a stupendous manufactory of
destructive engines, which we are rapidly placing
in the hands of all the savage and semi-savage peoples
of the earth, thus ensuring the speedy destruction
of all the finest types in the animal kingdom.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE WOODHEWER FAMILY.
(Dendrocolaptidae.)
The South American Tree-creepers, or Woodhewers, as
they are sometimes called, although confined exclusively
to one continent, their range extending from Southern
Mexico to the Magellanic islands, form one of the
largest families of the order Passeres; no fewer than
about two hundred and ninety species (referable to
about forty-six genera) having been already described.
As they are mostly small, inconspicuous, thicket-frequenting
birds, shy and fond of concealment to excess, it is
only reasonable to suppose that our list of this family
is more incomplete than of any other family of birds
known. Thus, in the southern Plata and north
Pata-gonian districts, supposed to be exhausted, where
my observations have been made, and where, owing to
the open nature of the country, birds are more easily
remarked than in the forests and marshes of the tropical
region, I have made notes on the habits of five species,
of which I did not preserve specimens, and which,
as far as I know, have never been described and named.
Probably long before the whole of South America has
been “exhausted,” there will be not less
than four to five hundred Dendrocolaptine species known.
And yet with the exception of that dry husk of knowledge,
concerning size, form and colouration, which classifiers
and cataloguers obtain from specimens, very little
indeed—scarcely anything, in fact—is
known about the Tree-creepers; and it would not be
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The Naturalist in La Plata from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
