GUACHARO 395 
examples obtained by Bonpland, on the visit of those two travellers, 
in September 1799, to a cave near Caripé (at that time a monastery 
of Aragonese Capuchins) in the Venezuelan province of Cumana on 
the northern coast of South America. A few years later it was 
discovered, says Latham (Gen. Hist. Birds, 1823, vii. p. 365), to 
inhabit Trinidad, where it appears to bear the name of Diablotin ;} 
and much more recently, by the receipt of specimens procured at 
Sarayacu in Ecuador, Caxamarea in the Peruvian Andes, and 
Antioquia in New Grenada (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1878, pp. 139, 140; 
1879, p. 532), its range has been shewn to be much greater than 
had been supposed. ‘The singularity of its structure, its curious 
habits, and its peculiar economical value have naturally attracted 
no little attention, and it has formed the subject of investigation 
by a considerable number of zoologists both British and foreign. 
First referring it to the genus Caprimulgus, its original describer 
soon saw that it was no true NIGHTJAR. It was subsequently 
separated as forming a subfamily, and has at last been regarded as 
the type of a distinct Family, Steatornithide—a view which, though 
not put forth till 1870 (Zool. Record, vi. p. 67), seems now to be 
generally accepted. Its systematic position, however, can scarcely 
be considered settled, for though on the whole its predominating 
alliance may be with the Caprimulgidx, nearly as much affinity may 
be traced to the Striges, while it possesses some characters in 
which it differs from both (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1873, pp. 526-535). 
About as big as a Crow, its plumage exhibits the blended tints of 
chocolate-colour and grey, barred and pencilled with dark brown or 
black, and spotted in places with white, that prevail in the two 
groups just named. The beak is hard, strong, and deeply 
notched, the nostrils are prominent, and the gape is furnished with 
twelve long hairs on each side. The legs and toes are compara- 
tively feeble, but the wings are large. In habits the Guacharo is 
wholly nocturnal, slumbering by day in deep and dark caverns 
which it frequents in vast numbers. Towards evening it arouses 
itself, and, with croaking and clattering that has been likened to 
that of castanets, it approaches the exit of its retreat, whence at 
nightfall it issues in search of its food, which, so far as is known, 
consists entirely of oily nuts or fruits, belonging especially to the 
genera Achras, Aiphanas, Laurus, and Psichotria, some of them sought, 
it would seem, at a very great distance, for M. Funck (Bull. Acad. 
Se. Bruxelles, xi. pt. 2, pp. 371-377) states that in the stomach of 
one he obtained at Caripé he found the seed of a tree which he 
believed did not grow nearer than 80 leagues. The hard, in- 
digestible seeds swallowed by the Guacharo are found in quantities 
on the floor and the ledges of the caverns it frequents, where many 
1 Not to be confounded with the bird so called in the French Antilles, which 
isa PETREL, Wstrelata hesitata (see EXTERMINATION, p. 227, note 4). 
