Texas Nature Observations and Reminiscenses Page: 78
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78 TEXAS NATURE OBSERVATIONS AND REMINISCENCES.
it never feeds either on beetles
nor night butterflies.
Every year, on Jones' day,
the Indians pilgrim to this cave,
destroy most of the nests with long
poles and kill many thousands
of the birds, at the same time
the old brood flies around with
terrible noise over the heads of
the Indians as if trying to defend
its brood. The young are at
once killed and gutted on the spot.
The peritoneum is overgrown with
thick layers of fat, also down to
the lower abdomen. That grain
eating bird, says Humboldt,
which is not exposed to sunlight
and makes but very little use of
its muscles becomes so fat, reminds
one of the fattening of geese and
cattle. During the "fat season"
the Indians build huts of palm
leaves at the entrance or inside the
cave, and extract the fat over fire
and place it into earthen jars, and
is marketed under the name of
"Guacharo-lard" or oil semi liquid,
clear, odorless, and so pure, that
it keeps over a year without
becoming rancid.
The Guacharo species would
have been long ago annihilated,
were it not that various circum-
stances contribute to their exist-
ence.
The Indians seldom dare to
go into the depths of the cave
for reason of a superstition; the
birds also seem to inhabit other
and inaccessible haunts near
inhabited caves and caverns, and
undoubtedly the old cave gets
inhabited yearly with new colonies
and the missionaries declare that
the bulk of these birds has not
declined. If the gullet and stom-
ach of the young birds be opened
various hard and dry seed are
found therein, but no remnants
of insects.
The cave near Caripe is a
fearfully mysterious place to the
Indians; they believe in the depths
of the cave their departed ances-
tors live. To go to the Guacharos
means as much to them as togo to their death. For this reason
fakirs and medicine men prepare
their nightly "hokus-pocus" in the
front entrance to the cave in order
to dispose of the ghosts.
With difficulty Humboldt's com-
panion, Bonpland, succeeded in
killing two of the heretofore un-
known birds, which was afterward
drawn by Humboldt. (Reproduced
herein.)
As the Indians could not be
compelled to penetrate deeper
into the cave, they returned to
Caripe.. Their path led them over
dangerous cliff precipices and dense
forests of tree-like fern plants and
palms. On their way, Humboldt
says he saw for the first time some
of the howl-apes at close range,
and the mournful cries of which
he had heard at sundown near
Caripe. In describing these apes,
Humboldt reiterated his heretofore
stated remarks, that the more
sorrowful these apes appear the more
humanlike they appear; and that
their hilarity and mobility lessens
the more their mental power is
developed."
For the past several year' I
have been longing to find the
breeding place of our bull-bat
bird or rather its typical two
eggs. They are generally to
be found in the hilly regions
around San Antonio, where this
peculiar and beautiful bird seeks
its bre ding haunts-generally a
secluded place with plenty of
round rocks and others simulating
the markings of the bird and its
large oval eggs, which the bird
deposits on the bare ground with-
out any nest material whatever
to enclose and protect the eggs.
With this inherited instinct to
deposit its two eggs in places
simulating both the color of the
bird and its eggs and without a
vestige of nest material, this trait
of the bullbat bird is quite unique
and it is a matter of fact that the
eggs, as a rule, are exceedingly
hard to find, unless one perchance
happens to chase up a breeding
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Menger, R. Texas Nature Observations and Reminiscenses, book, 1913; San Antonio, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth143558/m1/82/?q=menger: accessed May 4, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting University of Texas Health Science Center Libraries.