According to Garcilaso de la Vega, the guano-producing birds were protected by the Incas; those who killed them were severely punished. But during the Guano Age there was little consideration of the capacity of living birds, whom Coker called the “innocent agents in the production of the mines of wealth.” Recounting this history, a strain of anger and frustration runs through his writing. He excoriated earlier travelers, such as Humboldt, who ignored or underestimated the capacity of living birds to produce guano. “Had Humboldt given correct information,” he lamented, “it might earlier have
...more
