386 NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



in any of the West Indian islands proper. Mr. W. I. Hornaday, chief taxidermist of 

 the National Museum visited some of the Trinidad caves a few years ago, and has 

 kindly allowed me to make the following abstracts from an unpublished manuscript of 

 his : 



" At the extreme northwestern point of the Island of Trinidad, and directly opposite 

 the extreme northeastern point of the mainland of South America, there lies a group 

 of small islands. The north shore of each of these is a smooth perpendicular wall of 

 rock rising out of deep water to a height of a hundred feet or more. The caves 

 which shelter the guacharo birds are in these cliffs, with their entrance opening only 

 on the blue waters of the Caribbean Sea. When the sea is at all rough, an entrance 

 to any of the caves is utterly impossible, and even in the calmest weather it is neces- 

 sary to exercise a due amount of caution. 



" We set off early one morning when the sea was calmest, pulled westward along 

 the south shore of Monos Island, then out through the Huevos passage into the open 

 sea. Half an hour's pull along the precipitous side of Huevos Island brought us to a 

 tiny bay hemmed in by the same high wall of rock. A turn to the left around some 

 half-sunken rocks and we were at the entrance of the cave, a black, semicircular hole 

 at the base of the cliff, six feet high and twelve wide, into which the swells of the 

 sea dashed every moment. 



" The oarsmen held the boat carefully in position until a big wave came rolling in, 

 when they sent the boat flying forward on its crest. We passed safely over the 

 sunken rocks, and the next roller, which lifted the boat so high that we had to crouch 

 down in order that our heads might escape the roof of the tunnel, brought us to terra 

 firma. Scrambling out upon the pebbly beach we found rising before us a huge dome- 

 like cave. The moment we entered there arose a perfect storm of rasping cries 

 coming from the throats of about two hundred guacharo birds that circled about the 

 top of the cave. 



" The walls of the cave were smooth bare rock, but at one side a huge mass of 

 fallen rock formed a series of ledges from the floor up to a height of thirty feet 

 Climbing upon this we found numerous nests of the guacharos. The rocks were cov- 

 ered with guano to a depth of several inches. Whenever a smooth spot offered a safe 

 resting place the nests were placed like so many cheeses, while others were built half 

 swallow-like on the slopes. 



" As nearly as we could estimate there were about seventy or eighty nests, nearly 

 all of which we searched for eggs. In different nests we found the number to vary 

 from one up to four, so that we are unable to say what is the usual number laid. 



" Half an hour from the time we entered, the surf began to thunder so ominously 

 against the rocks outside, that our guide announced that we must quit the place with- 

 out delay, or run the risk of being penned up in the cave for an indefinite length of 

 time. Reluctantly enough we tumbled our specimens into the boat and pushed off." 



At the meeting of the Washington Biological Society, when Mr. Hornaday read 

 his paper he also exhibited one of the nests, very characteristically likened by him to 

 a cheese from seven to nine inches in diameter, and from three to six inches in height, 

 with the top slightly hollowed. It was formed of a brownish, spongy mass of consid- 

 erable solidity, which apparently consisted of the undigested seeds and skins of fruits, 

 ejected by the mouth, and mixed with the droppings of the birds. 



This indicates that the guacharo feeds upon fruits, which, in fact, constitute its- 

 only food quite in contradistinction to the other caprimulgoid birds, which are exclu- 



