542 The Roller-like Birds 



with about twelve long bristles on each side of the gape. In the color the plu- 

 mage is somber brownish, spotted with white and barred and penciled with dark 

 brown or black, indicating, as in the Owls and Goatsuckers, a bird of nocturnal 

 habits, and such it is, spending the day sleeping in deep, dark caverns and issu- 

 ing noisily forth toward evening to secure its food, which, so far as known, con- 

 sists entirely of oily seeds. Apparently they are sometimes forced to seek their 

 food at great distances, as it has been recorded that the stomachs of birds killed 

 at Caripe contained seeds that could not have been obtained within a distance 

 of eighty leagues. In certain localities they occur in vast numbers, and when 

 disturbed during the daytime, or when starting out at evening, utter loud, harsh 

 cries, whence the native name of Guacharo, which is said to be an old Spanish 

 word "signifying one that cries, moans, or laments loudly." Mr. William T. 

 Hornaday, director of the New York Zoological Park, has given a graphic 

 account of a visit to a cave inhabited by the Oil-birds on the northwestern ex- 

 tremity of the Island of Trinidad. This cave, in a precipitous wall of rock, opened 

 on the broad Caribbean Sea, and could only be visited in the calmest weather, and 

 even then not without danger. Waiting until a big wave came rolling in, they 

 sent the boat on its crest and were carried into the mouth of the cavern. "The 

 moment we entered," he says, "there arose a perfect storm of rasping cries com- 

 ing 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 on 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 Gua- 

 charos. Wherever a smooth spot offered a soft resting place, the nests were 

 placed like so many cheeses, while others were built half Swallow-like on the 

 slope." These cheese-like nests run about eight or nine inches in diameter and 

 from three to six inches high, being slightly hollowed on top. They were quite 

 solid and composed apparently of the undigested skins and seeds of fruits mixed 

 with tenacious mud or the droppings of the birds themselves* The eggs are 

 from two to four in number, pure white, but smooth and lusterless, as in certain 

 Owls. The young birds soon become a perfect mass of fat, and are then secured 

 in great numbers by the native Indians, who melt out the oil and run it into 

 earthen pots and retain it for further consumption as a substitute for butter. 

 This oil is said to be colorless and odorless, and may be kept for a year or more 

 without becoming rancid. The delicate young birds are also esteemed for food 

 by some, but their rather strong cockroach-like odor is objectionable to most 

 palates. 



THE FROGMOUTHS 



(Family Podargida) 



Apparently quite closely allied to the Goatsuckers, and for which some of 

 them might readily be mistaken, are the curious Frogmouths, so called from 

 their enormously widened and flattened bills, which have been likened to the 

 widely gaping mouth of a frog. They have much the same shape and mottled 



