78 TEXAS NATURE OBSERVATIONS AND REMINISCENCES. 



it never feeds either on beetles 

 nor night butterflies. 



Every year, on Jones' day, 

 the Indians pilgrim to t^iis cave, 

 destroy most of the nests with long 

 poles and kill many thousands 

 of the birds, at the same time 

 the old brood flies around with 

 terrible noise over the heads of 

 the Indians as if trying to defend 

 its brood. The young are at 

 once killed and gutted on the spot. 

 The peritoneum is overgrown with 

 thick layers of fat, also down to 

 the lower abdomen. That grain 

 eating bird, says Humboldt, 

 which is not exposed to sunlight 

 and makes but very little use of 

 its muscles becomes so fat, reminds 

 onq of the fattening of geese and 

 cattle. During the "fat season" 

 the Indians build huts of palm 

 leaves at the entrance or inside the 

 cave, and extract the fat over fire 

 ■and place it into earthen jars, and 



is marketed under the name of 

 ■"Guacharo-lard" or oil semi liquid, 

 clear, odorless, and so pure, that 

 it keeps over a year without 

 Taecoming rancid. 



The Guacharo species would 

 have been long ago annihilated, 

 were it not that various circum- 

 stances contribute to their exist- 

 ence^ 



The Indians seldom dare to 

 go into the depths of the cave 

 for reason of a superstition; the 

 birds also seem to inhabit other 

 and inaccessible haunts near 

 inhabited caves and caverns, and 

 undoubtedly the old cave gets 

 inhabited yearly with new colonies 

 and the missionaries declare that 

 the bulk of these birds has not 

 ■declined. If the gullet and stom- 

 ach of the young birds be opened 

 "various hard and dry seed are 

 found therein, but no remnants 

 of insects. 



The cave near Caripe is a 

 fearfully mysterious place to the 

 Indians; they believe in the depths 

 of the cave their departed ances- 

 tors live. To go to the Guacharos 

 means as much to them as to 



go to their death. For this reason 

 fakirs and medicine men prepare 

 their nightly "hokus-pocus" in the 

 front entrance to the cave in order 

 to dispose of the ghosts. 



With difficulty Humboldt's com- 

 panion, Bonpland, succeeded in 

 killing two of the heretofore un- 

 known birds, which was afterward 

 drawn by Humboldt. (Reproduced 

 herein.) 



As the Indians .could not be 

 compelled to penetrate deeper 

 into the cave, they returned to 

 Caripe. Their path led them over 

 dangerous cliff precipices and dense 

 forests of tree-like fern plants and 

 ■ palms. On their way, Humboldt 

 says he saw for the first time some 

 of the howl-apes at close range, 

 and the mournful cries of which 

 he had heard at sundown near 

 Caripe. In describing these apes, 

 Humboldt reiterated his heretofore 

 stated remarks, that the more 

 sorrowful these apes appear the more 

 humanlike they appear; and that 

 their hilarity and mobility lessens 

 the more their mental power is 

 developed. " 



For the past several years I 

 have been longing to find the 

 breeding place of our bull-bat 

 bird or rather its typical two 

 eggs. They are generally to 

 be found in the hilly regions 

 around San Antonio, where this 

 peculiar and beautiful bird seeks 

 its breeding haunts — generally a 

 secluded place with plenty of 

 round rocks and others simulating 

 the markings of the bird and its 

 large oval eggs, which the bird 

 deposits' on the bare ground with- 

 out any nest material whatever 

 to enclose and protect the eggs. 

 With this inherited instinct to 

 deposit its two eggs in places 

 simulating both the color of the 

 bird and its eggs and without a 

 vestige of nest material, this trait 

 of the buUbat bird is quite unique 

 and it is a matter of fact that the 

 eggs, as a rule, are exceedingly 

 hard to find, unless one perchance 

 happens to chase up a breeding 



