; Indeed he is of that tribe, though he differs from it in one great point, by living on fruit instead of flesh. I do not remember to have seen one in any collection of birds but Humboldt describes him as of a dark, bluish-grey, mixed with small black streaks, and large, white, heartshaped spots on his head, wings, and tail. I dare say we have both got as good an idea of his person as is necessary for what I wish to tell you. "Well; these birds live all the day in deep, dark caverns, into which the light of the sun never streams, and they only fly forth lazily into the woods hard by at night to get their berries and roots, and such articles of vegetable diet as they have a fancy for at the time. Such a life is so quiet and respectable, and free from ordinary risk, that we are not surprised to find their numbers are prodigious. They do not fight other birds, for not being flesh eaters, they have nothing to fight about; and besides, they are wisely asleep when those battles usually go on. They are too prudent to fight each other; so that their community has for centuries been continually on the increase. Now, you will see that all this tranquil happiness arises from being in the dark. 66 It is a pity that it should be disturbed. But some how this calm, vegetable life—this just flying in and out of a cave, with no other exercise, has a great tendency to produce fat; and the parents being fat themselves, have, in the course of time, caused all their families to be fat too, which has brought an inconvenience on them. The dark, too, has something to do with that. All animals grow fat in a surprising manner if they are well fed and kept from the light. You can try it on yourself for a week or two, if you feel over thin, and wish to prove the fact. But, at all events, it is well-known to feeders. Geese and turkeys are often kept for many weeks in cellars, and so stuffed with food that they do nothing but eat, and sleep, and make fat. It is not a very pleasant idea in eating them, nor very wholesome either; but it answers in the market. Distillers and brewers often keep hundreds of oxen in warm, darkened stalls, and fatten up the poor beasts with grains by a faint gas-light, till they forget all about grass and green fields, and cease to wonder what has become of the sun. "But, to the guacharo's inconvenience. Some Indians in old time, not being very particular about food, killed some of these night-birds, and found the fat so extremely good, that the taste for it has never gone off down to the present hour. The great delicacy, however, is the nestling, or the bird just about to fly. He has never seen a single ray of light to interfere with his fat, and his mother has fed him to his throat. The nests are built in the roof of the caverns, and the Indians knock them down with long poles, forty feet long. As soon as the young birds fall to the ground, they cut them open, and take out a thick layer of fat, which is melted down in pots of clay. called guacharo butter; an oily half-liquid mess, without smell, and which will keep for a year without turning bad. I do not think you or I should like it; but it is greatly used in those parts, and readily sold. It is "At one part of the year they have what is called the oil harvest, when many thousands of these birds are killed, -the young from their nests, and the old ones in defending them; but in spite of this great war and slaughter, they do not seem to diminish. To be sure, the caves are of great extent. Humboldt penetrated more than a quarter of a mile into one; and the screams of the frightened birds very far beyond so terrified his Indian guides, that they refused to go further. So no doubt a vast number are left wholly undisturbed from this cause, and supply the loss of the annual massacre; but it is a curious instance of the good qualities of the dark. "Night, too, is the joyous time for all wild animals. In warm countries, they are hid all the day in caves, or thickets, or beneath the branches of bushy trees, out of the way of the sun, and asleep in the cool shade. That is their nature all over the world. We are even told this in Scripture. It is said, in the 104th Psalm : "The sun knoweth his going down. Thou makest darkness, that it may be night; Do seek their meat from God. The sun ariseth, and they get them away together, "As soon as the darkness has well set in, the forests seem alive. Hyænas, tigers, panthers, and all the fiercer beasts of prey, rouse themselves, and steal forth. The lion, disdaining any attempt to conceal himself, boldly declares his presence with the first approach of evening. Let us read what Gordon Cumming says of him, who knows his habits better than any man living:-'One of the most remarkable things connected with the lion is his voice, which is extremely grand and peculiarly striking. Frequently it is a low, deep moaning, repeated five or six times, ending in faintly audible sighs; at others, he startles the forest with solemn roars in quick succession, each increasing in loudness to the third or fourth, when his voice dies away in low, muffled sounds, resembling distant thunder. At times, and not unfrequently, a troop may be heard roaring in concert, one assuming the lead, and two, three, or four more regularly taking up their parts; they roar loudest on cold, frosty nights, but on no occasion are their voices to be heard in such perfection, as when two or three strange troops of lions approach a fountain to drink at the same time. When this occurs, every member of each troop sounds a bold roar of defiance at the opposite party, and when one roars, all roar together, and each seems to vie with his comrades in the intensity and power of his voice.' "It is at this time that a regular hunt takes place of deer, antelopes, buffaloes, or any other animal which may be unfortunate enough to come in the way of these larger beasts of prey; and the night is passed in pursuit, alarm, and death of the luckless victims. The great scenes of these adventures are the streams and pools of water. All wild animals drink at night; and in hot climates their thirst is so overpowering, that they cannot restrain it, in spite of |