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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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.
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