Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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It Is The First Example Of A
Nocturnal Bird Among The Passeres Dentirostrati.
Its habits present
analogies both with those of the goatsuckers and of the alpine
crow.* (* Corvus Pyrrhocorax.) The plumage
Of the guacharo is of a
dark bluish grey, mixed with small streaks and specks of black.
Large white spots of the form of a heart, and bordered with black,
mark the head, wings, and tail. The eyes of the bird, which are
dazzled by the light of day, are blue, and smaller than those of
the goatsucker. The spread of the wings, which are composed of
seventeen or eighteen quill feathers, is three feet and a half. The
guacharo quits the cavern at nightfall, especially when the moon
shines. It is almost the only frugiferous nocturnal bird yet known;
the conformation of its feet sufficiently shows that it does not
hunt like our owls. It feeds on very hard fruits, like the
nutcracker* (* Corvus caryocatactes, C. glandarius. Our Alpine crow
builds its nest near the top of Mount Libanus, in subterranean
caverns, nearly like the guacharo. It also has the horribly shrill
cry of the latter.) and the pyrrhocorax. The latter nestles also in
clefts of rocks, and is known by the name of the night-crow. The
Indians assured us that the guacharo does not pursue either the
lamellicornous insects or those phalaenae which serve as food to
the goatsuckers. A comparison of the beaks of the guacharo and the
goatsucker serves to denote how much their habits must differ. It
would be difficult to form an idea of the horrible noise occasioned
by thousands of these birds in the dark part of the cavern. Their
shrill and piercing cries strike upon the vaults of the rocks, and
are repeated by the subterranean echoes. The Indians showed us the
nests of the guacharos by fixing a torch to the end of a long pole.
These nests were fifty or sixty feet high above our heads, in holes
in the shape of funnels, with which the roof of the grotto is
pierced like a sieve. The noise increased as we advanced, and the
birds were scared by the light of the torches of copal. When this
noise ceased a few minutes around us, we heard at a distance the
plaintive cries of the birds roosting in other ramifications of the
cavern. It seemed as if different groups answered each other
alternately.
The Indians enter the Cueva del Guacharo once a year, near
midsummer. They go armed with poles, with which they destroy the
greater part of the nests. At that season several thousand birds
are killed; and the old ones, as if to defend their brood, hover
over the heads of the Indians, uttering terrible cries. The young,*
(* Called Los pollos del Guacharo.) which fall to the ground, are
opened on the spot. Their peritoneum is found extremely loaded with
fat, and a layer of fat reaches from the abdomen to the anus,
forming a kind of cushion between the legs of the bird.
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