The OIL BIRD (_Steatornis Caripensis_) has hitherto been classed among the Goatsuckers, but it differs so essentially from any other member of that family in its mode of life, that we have decided upon describing it entirely apart. The body of this remarkable species is slender, the head flat and broad; the wing, in which the third and fourth quills exceed the rest in length, though long and pointed, does not extend as far as the extremity of the well-developed tail. The beak is broad at its base, compressed in the middle, and terminates in a hook; its tip, moreover, is furnished with two denticulations; the gape extends to the eyes, but the lower mandible is feeble and considerably shorter than the upper part of the beak. The feet are so small as to be almost useless upon the ground: their soles are callous, and the tarsi without feathers; the front toes are all of equal size, entirely unconnected, and the short hinder toe is reversible. The plumage is extremely soft, almost silky, and the region of the beak is overgrown with long bristles; the large eyes are protected by heavy lids covered with long hairs. The gullet is not dilated into a crop, and the stomach is very muscular; the entrails are covered with a fatty layer of such thickness that they may be said to be embedded in fat. The plumage is of a beautiful reddish brown, deepest in shade upon the back; the head, breast, belly, wings, and tail are rust-red, marked with heart-shaped white spots, which are here and there surrounded by a black line. The eye is blueish black, the beak and feet horn-grey. The length of this species is about twenty-one inches, and its breadth about forty-two inches. Humboldt, who discovered this remarkable bird in 1799, found it living in the rocky caverns of Caripe, and more recent travellers have met with it in the dark clefts and fissures of rocks among the Andes.