AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
55 
plants. The long-extended surface of Java, abounding 
with conical points which exceed this elevation, affords 
many places favourable for its resort. On ascending these 
mountains, the traveller scarcely fails to meet with this 
animal, which, from its peculiarities, is universally known 
to the inhabitants of these elevated tracts, while to those 
of the plains it is as strange as an animal from a foreign 
country. In my visits to the mountainous districts, I 
uniformly met with it, and, as far as the information of 
the natives can be relied on, it is found on all the moun- 
tains.” 
Now, if we were asked to conjecture how the Mydaus 
arrived at the elevated regions of each of these isolated 
mountains, we should say that before the isle was peopled 
by man, by whom their numbers are now thinned, they 
may occasionally have multiplied so as to be forced to col- 
lect together and migrate; in which case, notwithstanding 
the slowness of their motions, some few would succeed in 
reaching another mountain, some twenty, or even, per- 
haps, fifty miles distant: for although the climate of the 
hot intervening plains would be unfavourable to them, 
they might support it for a time, and would find there 
abundance of insects on which they feed. Volcanic erup- 
tions, which at different times have covered the summits 
of some of these lofty cones with sterile sand and ashes, may 
have occasionally contributed to force on these migrations. 
[Ly ell's Geology . 
CAVE OF GUACHARO, NEAR CUMANA. 
The greatest curiosity in this beautiful and salubrious 
district is a cavern inhabited by nocturnal birds, the fat 
of which is employed in the missions for dressing food. It 
is named the Cave of Guacharo, and is situated in a valley 
three leagues distant from the convent. 
On the 18th of September our travellers, accompanied 
by most of the monks and some of the Indians, set out for 
this aviary, following for an hour and a half a narrow path, 
leading across a fine plain covered with beautiful turf; 
then, turning westward along a small river which issues 
from the cave, they proceeded during three-quarters of an 
hour, sometimes walking in the water, sometimes on a 
slippery and miry soil, between the torrent and a wall of 
rocks, until they arrived at the foot of the lofty mountain 
of Guacharo. Here the torrent ran in a deep ravine, and 
they went on under a projecting cliff, which prevented 
them from seeing the sky, until at the last turning they 
came suddenly upon the immense opening of the recess, 
which is eighty-five feet broad and seventy-seven feet 
high. The entrance is towards the south, and is formed 
in the vertical face of a rock, covered with trees of gigantic 
height, intermixed with numerous species of singular and 
beautiful plants, some of which hang in festoons over the 
vault. This luxuriant vegetation is not confined to the 
exterior of the cave, but appears even in the vestibule, 
where the travellers were astonished to see heliconias nine- 
teen feet in height, palms, and arborescent arums. They 
had advanced about four hundred and sixty feet before it 
became necessary to light their torches, when they heard 
from afar the hoarse screams of the birds. 
The Guacharo is the size of a domestic fowl, and has 
somewhat the appearance of a vulture, with a mouth like 
that of a goatsucker. It forms a distant genus in the order 
Passeres, differing from that just named in having a 
stronger beak, furnished with two denticulations, though 
in its manners it bears an affinity to it as well as to the 
alpine crow. Its plumage is dark bluish-gray, minutely 
streaked and spotted with deep brown ; the head, wings, 
and tail being marked with white spots bordered with 
black. The extent of the wings is three feet and a half. 
It lives on fruits, but quits the cave only in the evening. 
The shrill and piercing cries of these birds, assembled in 
multitudes, are said to form a harsh and disagreeable noise, 
somewhat resembling that of a rookery. The nests, which 
the guides showed by means of torches fastened to a long 
pole, were placed in funnel-shaped holes in the roof. The 
noise increased as they advanced, the animals being fright- 
ened by the numerous lights. 
About midsummer every year the Indians, armed with 
poles, enter the cave, and destroy the greater part of the 
nests. Several thousands of young birds are thus killed, 
and the old ones hover around, uttering frightful cries. 
Those which are secured in this manner are opened on the 
spot, to obtain the fat which exists abundantly in their 
abdomen, and which is subsequently melted in clay ves- 
sels over fires of brushwood. This substance is semifluid, 
transparent, destitute of smell, and keeps above a year 
without becoming rancid. At the convent of Caripe it 
was used in the kitchen of the monks, and our travellers 
never found that it communicated any disagreeable smell 
or taste to the food. 
The Guacharoes would have been long ago destroyed, 
had not the superstitious dread of the Indians prevented 
them from penetrating far into the cavern. It also appears, 
that birds of the same species dwell in other inaccessible 
places in the neighbourhood, and that the great cave is re- 
peopled by colonies from them. The hard and dry fruits 
which are found in the crops and gizzards of the young 
ones are considered as an excellent remedy against inter-, 
