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Updated: June 17, 2025
When the light of day begins to fail, the hoarse cries of the nocturnal birds are heard coming out of the dark recesses of the interior. The guacharo is of the size of the common fowl; its hooked bill is white, like that of the goat-sucker, and furnished at the base with stiff hairs, directed forwards. The plumage is of a sombre brownish grey, mixed with black stripes and large white spots.
The sea was a plain shining beneath the moon. Against the light, inky sycamores ruffled, stars entangled in their leaves. On the shingle- bank the bear-skinn'd sentinel showed black against white waters. The plain beauty of the night stole upon his mind. All was jewelled silence, save for the jar-r-r of the familiar goat-sucker from the foot of the hills, and the wash of the sea.
When the moon shines bright you may have a fair opportunity of examining the goat-sucker. You will see it close by the cows, goats and sheep, jumping up every now and then under their bellies. Approach a little nearer he is not shy: "he fears no danger, for he knows no sin."
When the sun has sunk in the western woods, no longer agitated by the breeze; when you can only see a straggler or two of the feathered tribe hastening to join its mate, already at its roosting-place, then it is that the goat-sucker comes out of the forest, where it has sat all day long in slumbering ease, unmindful of the gay and busy scenes around it.
The impossibility that the boy should have got so far on foot made Laetitia doubtful of his veracity, until she heard that a gentleman had taken him up on the road in a gig, and had driven him to a farm to show him strings of birds' eggs and stuffed birds of every English kind, kingfishers, yaffles, black woodpeckers, goat-sucker owls, more mouth than head, with dusty, dark-spotted wings, like moths; all very circumstantial.
"I will teach him to cross my path," she vociferated, in accents shrill and jarring as the cry of the goat-sucker. "Handsome he is, it may be, now, but he shall not be so long. The bloom shall fade from his cheek, the fire be extinguished in his eyes, the strength depart from his limbs. Sorrow shall be her portion who loves him sorrow and shame!"
"It is the goat-sucker, you know; they are very fond of feeding on that sort of beetle called the gnat-chafer; in fact, it is their favourite food. It has another name, the fern-owl." "So I have heard;" and then, as a rich strong voice broke suddenly on his startled ears, he leant back in his hammock chair and composed himself to listen.
Since then, whenever the wood-cutters and charcoal-burners from the huts in the neighbourhood pass along the top of the Roche-Mauprat ravine, if it is in daytime they whistle with a defiant air or hurl a hearty curse at the ruins; but when day falls and the goat-sucker begins to screech from the top of the loopholes, wood-cutter and charcoal-burner pass by silently, with quickened step, and cross themselves from time to time to ward off the evil spirits that hold sway among the ruins.
"No doubt about there being plenty of room, lads," said my uncle, as he laughed at our scared faces, for the sudden rush out was startling. "Is them owls, sir?" said the carpenter, staring. "No, no," replied my uncle; "they are something of the goat-sucker tribe night-birds which build in caves; but a good half of what we see are bats."
If the largest goat-sucker chance to cry near the white man's door, sorrow and grief will soon be inside: and they expect to see the master waste away with a slow consuming sickness. If it be heard close to the negro's or Indian's hut, from that night misfortune sits brooding over it: and they await the event in terrible suspense. You will forgive the poor Indian of Guiana for this.
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