170 TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO BULLETIN. [XX.2,3&4. 



Scrambling out on to the pebbly beach we found rising before us a 

 huge dome-like cave. The moment we entered there arose a perfect 

 storm of raspmg cries coming from the throats of about two hundred 

 guacharo birds that circled round 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 to 

 a height of thirty feet. Climbing upon these we found numerous 

 nests of the guacharo. The rocks were covered to a depth of several 

 inches with guano. Wherever a smooth spot offered a safe resting 

 place the nests were built up like so many cheeses while others were 

 built half swallow like on the slopes." 



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

 nests, nearly all of which we searched for eggs. In different nests we 

 found the number of eggs to vary one to four, so that we are unable to 

 say what the usual number is." 



In December, 1918 when I tried to reach this cave the boatman 

 told me that the mouth of the cave had fallen in, but owing to the 

 rough weather I was not able to get close enough to say if this was so. 



A second sea-cave nesting place of this bird is a small cave on 

 the east side of the First Boca, that is to say on the cliffs of Trinidad. 

 It is about a quarter of a mile to the seaward of the small bay locally 

 known as L'Ance Pawa. I visited this cave on May 12, 1918 and 

 again in January 1921 but on the latter occasion the sea was too 

 rough to enter. 



The rock of the cliff is a sandy schist and the cave is one of 

 several formed by the breaking away of the rock along the stratifica- 

 tion and in cleavage planes at right angles to this. The entrance is 

 about ten feet high at \9w water, but just inside it becomes considerable 

 higher. It is about fifty yards deep narrowing behind into a low 

 tunnel. 



About half way back in the cave I climbed out of the boat and 

 found the water about two feet deep, getting shallower to the back 

 of the cave. About a dozen or twenty birds were nesting on ledges 

 high up on the walls but all were out of reach so that I cannot say if 

 laying was taking place or not. 



One specimen was shot on this occasion. It was moulting. On 

 the feathers were a number of mites of the genus Megninia. 



The next locality that I visited was in the Arima Valley where 

 we heard rumours that there was a cave with Guacharos. However 

 on searching in company with Mr. Urich on June 2, 1918 we found 

 that it was not a cave but a deep narrow canyon that had been chosen 

 by the birds. The river has cut a deep ravine, forty to fifty feet deep 

 and less than ten feet wide in the soft schist that forms so much of the 



