THE guachaho cave. 
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" Flamingoes in their crimson tunics stalked 
On stately legs, with far exploring eye ; 
Or fed and slejjt in regimental lines, 
Watched by their sentinels, whose clarion screams 
All in an instant waked the startled group, 
That mounted like a glorious exhalation. 
And vanished through the welkin far away." 
Stranger locality for a residence is favoured by none than by the 
guacharo, which frequents two or three of the limestone caverns of 
Trinidad and the American Mainland, always in the neighbourhood of 
a profuse tropical vegetation. Thus Humboldt describes the Cave of 
Caripe as pierced in the vertical profile of a rock which is covered 
with trees of gig-antic height. Plants with succulent stems, beautiful 
oxalises, and fanciful orchids, bloom in the driest clefts of the pre- 
cipices ; while creepers, waving in the winds, are wreathed in garlands 
and festoons before the mouth of the cavern. 
The guacharo quits the cavern at nightfall, showing a marked 
preference for a moonlit night. He is almost the only frugivorous 
nocturnal bird of which our naturalists have any knowledge. Like the 
nut-cracker, he feeds on very hard fruits. Humboldt, who penetrated 
into the guacharo cave, says that it is difficult to form an idea of the 
terrible din produced by thousands of these birds in its dark recesses ; 
a din comparable only to the croaking of the crows which, in the 
Northern pine-forests, congregate together and build their nests upon 
trees, the tops of which touch each other. Their shrill, ear-piercing 
cries strike upon the vaults of the rocks, and are repeated by the 
echo in the cavern's depth. The Indians, b}^ attaching toi'ches to the 
end of long poles, contrive to exhibit their nests, situated fifty or sixty 
feet above the ground, in funnel-shaped holes, so numerous that the 
roof of the grotto resembles a gigantic sieve. Each nest is nothing 
more than a round lump of mud, of the size and shape of a large cheese, 
with a shallow depression on the top to receive the bird's eggs. 
Once a year the Indians, armed with poles, enter the guacharo 
cave, and destroy the greater part of the nests. Several thousands of 
birds are killed ; and the old ones, as if to defend their bi-ood, hover 
above the heads of the bird-hunters, giving vent to piteous plaints. 
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