40 
POPULAR HISTORY OF BIRDS. 
chiefly on fruit, and about midsummer gets very fat. 
The Indians, as detailed in Humboldt^s ^Personal Nar- 
rative/ at this time annually destroy thousands of the 
young birds, and having opened them, extract the fat, which 
they melt in clay vessels. This fat is semifluid and trans- 
parent, and keeps sweet for more than a year. The monks 
of the convent of Caripe use this fat in cookery; while the 
Indians regard the fruits, found in the crops of the young, 
as an excellent remedy against intermittent fevers. 
Our British Goatsucker {Caprimulgus Buropmis) is very 
regular in commencing his song at sunset. The Eev. Mr. 
Willmott says : " He never loses a minute ; so that in a vil- 
lage, where, in still weather, the Portsmouth evening gun is 
often heard, the boom and the note intermingle. If a signal 
were given, the two sounds could not be more even'^.''^ 
The Pissirostral birds, alluded to, are more or less exclu- 
sively night feeders. We now come to a section, the mem- 
bers of which are all actively engaged in seeking their insect 
food during the day. 
All birds are equally well adapted by their organization, for 
the part they- have to occupy in the system of nature, but in 
some this organization is more apparent to us. As an illus- 
* Journal of Summer-time in the Country, p. 194. 
