190 Wonders of the Bird World 



birds as well, and, more curious still, a collection of fruit- 

 stones with which the floor of the cave was strewn. These 

 should be, according to the observations made by Dr. 

 Stolzmann in Peru, the stones of a species of Nectandra, 

 which are rejected by the bird after the fleshy portion of 

 the fruit has been devoured, and the last-named naturalist 

 says that the fruit is seized by the birds when in full flight 

 from the ends of the slender boughs on which it grows. In 

 some places the Indians illuminate the cave with torches 

 fixed to long poles, and then the nests can be seen at a 

 height of fifty or sixty feet up, in funnel-like holes at the 

 top of enormous grottoes, the roof of which is pierced like a 

 sieve. When scared, the birds fly round and round the 

 cave, or hide in the recesses of the rocks, whence they call 

 to each other with plaintive cries. In the darkness little 

 else can be heard than the calls of the birds and the flutter- 

 ing of their wings, and Stolzmann says that sixty shots 

 fired at random into the roof of the cave only brought down 

 eleven birds. The young bird sent me by Dr. Bevan Rake 

 from the caves of Trinidad was such a mass of yellow oily 

 fat, that it was some little time before I could find where 

 the bird itself was concealed. Hence arises the popular 

 name of " Oil " bird for the Guacharo, and the Indians make 

 special expeditions to the caves and capture numbers of the 

 young, building their huts of palm-leaves near the entrance 

 of the cave, and melting down the fat of the nestlings in 

 clay pots. The " oil season," as it is called, takes place 

 about midsummer, and the fat is known as " Guacharo 

 butter." 



Stolzmann says that the young are fed on Nectandra 

 fruits, and the stones are thrown up by the nestlings with- 

 out any apparent effort on their part, the ejection of the 

 stone being signalized by a slight movement of the feathers 

 of the throat, when the mouth is gently opened, and the 

 stone appears. If any of the flesh of the fruit still adheres 



