ANATOMY OF BIRDS
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION
MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS
CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS
LIZARD-TAILED BIRD
AMERICAN TOOTHED-BIRDS
THE OSTRICHES
THE RHEAS
EMEUS AND CASSOWARIES
THE TINAMOUS
THE KIWIS
THE PENGUINS
LOONS AND GREBES
ALBATROSSES & PETRELS
STORK-LIKE BIRDS
GOOSE-LIKE BIRDS
FALCON-LIKE BIRDS
FOWL-LIKE BIRDS
CRANE-LIKE BIRDS
PLOVER-LIKE BIRDS
CUCKOO-LIKE BIRDS
THE ROLLER-LIKE BIRDS
SPARROW-LIKE BIRDS
Birds and Birding's Guide to:
Watching THE ROLLER-LIKE BIRDS
THE GOATSUCKERS AND THEIR ALLIES
THE OIL-BIRD
(Family Steatornithidce)
We may begin the consideration of the suborder Capviwulgi with an account of the remarkable Oil-bird (Steatornis steatornis), which constitutes by itself a very distinct family, showing points of agreement with both the Owls and Goat-suckers, but on the whole differing from either. It was discovered by the celebrated Humboldt a little over a century ago in a cave near the mission of Caripe, Venezuela, but has since been found inhabiting caverns in Guiana, Colombia, and Trinidad, as well as Ecuador and Peru.
About eighteen or twenty inches in length, it has comparatively weak legs and feet, but large, strong wings and a hard, strong, somewhat Owl-like bill, which is deeply notched and provided with about twelve long bristles on each side of the gape. In the color the plumage is somber brownish, spotted with white and barred and penciled with dark brown or black, indicating, as in the Owls and Goatsuckers, a bird of nocturnal habits, and such it is, spending the day sleeping in deep, dark caverns and issuing noisily forth toward evening to secure its food, which, so far as known, consists entirely of oily seeds.
Apparently they are sometimes forced to seek their food at great distances, as it has been recorded that the stomachs of birds killed at Caripe contained seeds that could not have been obtained within a distance of eighty leagues. In certain localities they occur in vast numbers, and when disturbed during the daytime, or when starting out at evening, utter loud, harsh cries, whence the native name of Guacharo, which is said to be an old Spanish word”signifying one that cries, moans, or laments loudly.”Mr. William T. Hornaday, director of the New York Zoological Park, has given a graphic account of a visit to a cave inhabited by the Oil-birds on the northwestern extremity of the Island of Trinidad.
This cave, in a precipitous wall of rock, opened on the broad Caribbean Sea, and could only be visited in the calmest weather, and even then not without danger. Waiting until a big wave came rolling in, they sent the boat on its crest and were carried into the mouth of the cavern.”
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