44 DIVISION I. VERTEBRAL ANIMALS.—CLASS II. AVES, 
while the old birds hover over the heads of the robbers, as if to defend their 
brood, uttering horrible cries. The young, which fall down, are opened on 
the spot. The peritoneum is found loaded with fat, and a layer of the same 
substance on the abdomen forms a kind of cushion between the bird’s legs. 
At the period above mentioned, which is generally known at Caripe by the 
designation of the “oil harvest,” huts are built by the Indians with palm 
leaves, near the entrance, and even in the very porch of the cavern. There 
the fat of the young birds just killed is melted in clay pots over a bush-wood 
fire ; and this fat is named butter or oil (aanteca or acette) of the Guacharo. 
It is half liquid, transparent, inodorous, and so pure that it will keep above 
a year without becoming rancid. In the kitchen of the monks of the con- 
vent of Caripe no other oil is used, and Humboldt never found that it 
imparted a disagreeable taste or smell to the aliments. The quantity of 
very pure maiteca collected does not exceed one hundred and fifty, or one 
hundred and sixty bottles, each being sixty cubic inches; the rest, which is 
less transparent, is preserved in large earthen vessels: the whole hardly 
seems to correspond with the immense annual carnage of birds. The use 
of the Guacharo oil is very ancient, and the race of Guacharo birds would 
have been extinct lone since if several circumstances had not contributed to 
their preservation. The natives, withheld by superstitious fears, seldom dare 
to proceed far into the recesses of the cavern. Humboldt had great difficulty 
in persuading them to pass beyond the outer part of the cave, the only por- 
tion of it which they visit annually to collect the oil; and the whole author- 
ity of the padres was necessary to make them penetrate as far as the spot 
where the floor rises abruptly at an inclination of sixty degrees, and where 
a small, subterraneous cascade is formed by the torrent. In the minds of 
the Indians this cave, inhabited by nocturnal birds, is associated with mystic 
ideas, and they believe that in the deep recesses of the cavern the: souls of 
their ancestors sojourn. 
Of the Caprimulgine, our American Night Hawks, Whippoorwills, the 
European Night Jar, are familiar examples. 
The Night Hawk, or Bull Bat, is distributed generally over the North 
American continent, and its habits are well known. It arrives in the lat- 
itude of New England about the 10th of May. At this time great num- 
bers may be observed, at early twilight, coursing through the air in different 
directions, sometimes at a great height, sometimes just above the trees in 
the country, or houses in the city; occasionally, very near the earth or 
water, or, when near the sea-coast, but just above the marshes, where they 
destroy great numbers of insects. Their flight is very rapid, their long 
wines giving quick, powerful sweeps ; and, as they dart about in many eccen- 
tric movements, busily gleaning their food, they utter, at oft-repeated inter- 
a 
