450 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1818. 



the old ones, as if to defend their 

 brood, hover over the heads of 

 the Indians, uttering terrible cries. 

 The young,* vrhich fall to the 

 ground, are opened on the spot. 

 Their peritoneum is 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. This 

 quantity of fat in frugivorous ani- 

 mals, not exposed to the light, 

 and exerting very little muscular 

 motion, reminds us of what has 

 been long since observed in the 

 fattening of geese and oxen. It 

 is well known how favourable 

 darkness and repose are to this 

 process. The nocturnal birds of 

 Europe are lean, because, instead 

 of feeding on fruits, like the gua- 

 charo, they live on the scanty 

 produce of their prey. At the 

 period which is commonly called 

 at Caripe the oil harvest,-\ the 

 Indians build huts with palm 

 leaves, near the entrance, and 

 even in the porch of the cavern. 

 Of thesewe still saw someremains. 

 There, with a fire of brush-wood, 

 they melt in pots of clay the fat 

 of the young birds just killed. 

 This fat is known by the name of 

 butter or oil (manteca or aceite) 

 of the guacharo. It is half liquid, 

 transparent without smell, and so 

 pure that it may be kept above a 

 year without becoming rancid. 

 At the convent of Caripe no other 

 oil is used in the kitchen of the 

 monks but that of the cavern; 

 and we never observed, that it 

 gave the aliments a disagreeable 

 taste or smell. 



The quantity of this oil col- 



* Los polios del Guacharo. 

 t La cosecha de la manteca. 



lected little corresponds with the 

 carnage made every year in the 

 grotto by the Indians. It appears, 

 that they do not get above 150 or 

 160 bottles * of very pure man- 

 teca ; the rest, less transparent, is 

 preserved in large earthen vessels. 

 This branch of industry reminds 

 us of the harvest of pigeons' oil,f 

 of which some thousands of barrels 

 were formerly collected in Caro- 

 lina. At Caripe, the use of the 

 oil of guacharoes is very ancient, 

 and the missionaries have only re- 

 gulated the method of extracting 

 it. The members of an Indian 

 family, which bears the name of 

 Morocoymas, pretend, as descend- 

 ants of the first colonists of the 

 valley, to be the lawful proprietors 

 of tlie cavern, and arrogate to 

 themselves the monopoly of the 

 fat ; but, thanks to the monastic 

 institutions, their rights at present 

 are merely honorary. In confor- 

 mity to the system of the mis- 

 sionaries, the Indians are obliged 

 to furnish guacharo-oil for the 

 church lamp : the rest, we were 

 assured, is purchased of them. 

 We shall not decide either on the 

 legitimacy of the rights of the 

 Morocoymas, or on the origin of 

 the obligation imposed on the 

 natives by the monks. It would 

 seem natural, that the produce of 

 the chace should belong to those 

 who hunt : but in the forests of 

 the New World, as in the centre 

 of European cultivation, public 

 right is modified according to 

 the relations, which are esta- 

 blished between the strong and 



* Sixty cubic inches each. 



t 1\ns pigeon o«7 comes from the 

 columba migratoria (Pennant's Arctic 

 Zoology,T. 2,p. 13), 



the 



