58 
NAT ORE 
[Mov. 17, 1881 
“An almost perfectly land-locked harbour is formed by 
Monos itself and the neighbouring islands ; onthe Monos 
side indented with little bays, each one with its pretty 
white cottage, sparkling in the shade of clumps of coco- 
palms, with a silk cotton tree here and there, the latter 
looking as if they were trying to grow themselves into 
boards to save the sawyer trouble. The general tone of 
the vegetation just now is rather dull-and New Zealand- 
ish, but the rocks along shore are covered with an 
infinity of bright flowers and shrubs, slender-shaped 
aloes bearing golden blossoms on their candelabra-like 
branchlets ; wild pines with pink bracts and bright yellow 
petals, with sweet-scented orchids dangling anywhere 
and everywhere. 
“ February 29.--From Morrison’s Bay in the hot level 
morning sun (most punishing and dangerous of all are 
the point-blank darts of Apollo), fairly into the Bocca 
Mono, upon the mysterious ‘ Guacharo,’ which is here 
called ‘watchelo” The only cave containing them 
accessible at present was a low-browed one at the base of 
the cliff, into which an occasional roller sweeps ever and 
again in a most unpleasant manner, lighting up the black 
interior with flashes of foam, which augurs badly for 
the safety of our delicate pine gig. On this it was 
thought better to fall back on native talent, fishing close 
by in an island boat formed as to its lower parts of a 
“dug-out’ from the solid tree, and as to its upper of two 
planks nailed on to heighten the free board. A tituppy, 
ticklish kind of a craft to the inexperienced, crank in the 
extreme, but with a huge reputation for seaworthiness 
when properly handled. The negro proprietor had his 
head tied up in a dirty clout, in consequence of a differ- 
ence of opinion with another ‘cullud gebblum,’ who 
had revenged his broken nose by literally ‘mashing him 
jaw with rock-stone.’ Though mumbly in speech, he was 
civil and accommodating, and taking Morrison and L, on 
board his dancing walnut-shell, he backed into the cave 
on the back of an accommodating wave. The cave was 
not deep enough to prevent the proceedings of those 
within being seen and heard by those without, and soon 
dismal yells, followed by smoky and smothered explosions, 
showed that hints were being given to the ‘watchelo’ 
to show themselves to their visitors. Another shot, fol- 
lowed by a jubilant shout, told us that one at least had 
shown himself once too often, and the party emerged 
blinking into the sunlight with their prey. The second 
entry was like the first: the interior commonplace and 
cavey, the interesting thing, of course, the ‘ watchelos,’ 
fluttering about and perching on the more prominent 
projections. It is a remarkably handsome, upstanding, 
and even graceful bird, long-tailed, brown-feathered, with 
white diamond markings, just the colour of the quartz 
crystals in the reddish-brown rock on which it stood— 
a capital instance of preservative colouring, or the effect 
of surrounding colour. Altogether the ‘watchelo’ looks 
very much like a cross between the long-tailed cuckoo 
and a fair sized hawk; though the thighs are quite bare 
of feathers. We have been told all that is known about 
these queer fruit-eating Fissirostres—still there is much 
that is not known; for example, where they spend the 
night in collecting the fruit which contains the hard 
bristly seeds found in the stomachs of the adults and 
the young, and which, developing their nestlings into 
mere masses of fat, render them, as charming Mrs. 
Morrison says, ‘sz 60x &@ manger.’ Mr. Morrison says 
that they feed on the ‘ 7zerv7a firma, cr mainland, but 
even he knoweth not on what. 
“ Having finished thus successfully our chase of the 
frugivorous goatsucker, we turned our attention and 
boat’s head to another cave on the other side of the 
Bocca, in which dwelt an equally eccentric and out-of- 
the-way animal, the ‘piscivorous bat.’ These queer 
creatures, possibly in imitation of their opposite neigh- 
bours, have relinquished their supposed natural food, and 
have betaken themselves to catching fish at night in a 
manner which is not very clearly made out. Either they 
scoop them off the surface of the water by means of the 
membrane extended between their hind legs, or they 
catch them with their exceedingly sharp and curiously 
arranged claws. They dwell in a cave much more lowly 
and commonplace than their neighbours the ‘ watchelos,’ 
and as they declined to answer the invitation sent to them 
by a shot into its interior, some of the party jumped over- 
board, mid-leg into the water, and proceeded with shouts 
and yells to drive them out into the glaring sunlight. Out 
they came in scores, these odd members of the Fish- 
mongers’ Company, flickering and fluttering in the slant- 
ing morning rays that shone through their diaphanous 
wing membranes and almost translucent chestnut-coloured 
bodies. Gnomes, Fays, Fanfullas, Flibbertigibbets, any 
queer, fantastic thing you have ever fancied or dreamt - 
about, were not half so fantastic as these! Strange, and 
not without weird beauty to the eye. But to the nose! 
Fairylike in form and fluttering as they might be, the simple 
truth is they stank like Fitchets! ‘Ruddy Miss Prue with 
golden hair,’ in her wildest rompings, was nothing to them, 
and the scent produced in the hardest and strongest 
‘illiad’ mariner a fervent desire to heave up his im- 
mortal soul. Possibly in revenge for this, the hardy one 
went for them with a boat-stretcher with such enthusiasm 
that shortly a hollow sound was heard, and another 
mariner, no longer enthusiastic, was observed hanging 
his head over the gunwale of the boat, with the blood 
trickling down his innocent nose from as pretty a scalp- 
wound as ever delighted a savage. However, but little 
harm was done, and we collected our wounded and slain, 
many of which had meanwhile sunk to the bottom, and 
wended our way back to the orthumobria. 
“We visited the Bocca again in a late twilight, if there 
be such between the tropics, to study the mode of fishing 
of these most mysterious bats; but it was too dark to 
make anything out with certainty, though the queer 
scooping ‘swish’ supposed to be produced by their 
skimming the surface of the water with their posterior 
membranes, was distinct enough. What was even more 
distinct was, not to put too fine a point upon it, the stink; 
even right out in the open Bocca and at some distance 
from the cave, we were aware of the neighbourhood of 
individuals by the heavy rank smell floated towards us in 
the hot evening breeze. 
“Tt is not the slightest use the ‘ parlour naturalists,” 
who study birds in glass cases and fishes in bottles, say- 
ing that this bat, from its ‘dentition,’ ‘tripetition,’ or any 
other of its ‘itions,’ must be frugivorous or insectivorous, 
The simple fact is that it is neither. When you find an 
individual of showy exterior, but slightly imperfect man- 
ners, with his pockets full of watches with the swivels 
broken off, you are justified in classing him, without the 
slightest reference to his ‘ dentition,’ as a specimen of the 
‘swell mob—Homo watch-priggious’; and I maintaia 
that when you find the stomach of a bat—the only 
pocket he possesses, not being a marsupial— stuffed 
with the scales and bones of fishes, you are fairly entitled 
to put him down as ‘ichthyophagous’ by all the rules of 
common sense. Our queer friend the ‘watchelo, with 
his deeply-cleft bill and outstanding bristles, ovg/iz to be 
a moth-catching goatsucker; but unless he swallows 
seeds for ballast he certainly lives on the fruits which 
contained them. It is the old story: directly we find 
what we call ‘ Nature’ doing a thing perfectly well in one 
way, we immediately find her doing it equally well in 
another and directly opposite one. If she finds a bird 
with a bill perfectly formed for the catching of moths, 
she at once shows that it will do equally well for picking 
fruits off the bushes on dark nights; and if a bat can 
take the smallest midge in the twilight with unerring 
accuracy, she turns him without alteration into as good a 
fisher as the very otter himself. 
