Kirchhofsgedanken (1656). His best works are his comedies, one of which, Absurda Comica, oder Herr Peter Squentz (1663), is evidently based on the comic episode of Pyramus and Thisbe in The Midsummer Night’s Dream. Die geliebte Dornrose (1660), which is written in a Silesian dialect, contains many touches of natural simplicity and grace, and ranks high among the comparatively small number of German dramas of the 17th century. Horribilicribrifax (1663), founded on the Miles gloriosus of Plautus, is a rather laboured attack on pedantry. Besides these three comedies, Gryphius wrote five tragedies. In all of them his tendency is to become wild and bombastic, but he had the merit of at least attempting to work out artistically conceived plans, and there are occasional flashes both of passion and of imagination. His models seem to have been Seneca and Vondel. He had the courage, in Carolus Stuardus (1649) to deal with events of his own day; his other tragedies are Leo Armenius (1646); Katharina von Georgien (1657), Cardenio und Celinde (1657) and Papinianus (1663). No German dramatic writer before him had risen to so high a level, nor had he worthy successors until about the middle of the 18th century.
A complete edition of Gryphius’s dramas and lyric poetry has been published by H. Palm in the series of the Stuttgart Literarische Verein (3 vols., 1878, 1882, 1884). Volumes of selected works will be found in W. Müller’s Bibliothek der deutschen Dichter des 17ten Jahrhunderts (1822) and in J. Tittmann’s Deutsche Dichter des 17ten Jahrhunderts (1870). There is also a good selection by H. Palm in Kürschner’s Deutsche Nationalliteratur.
See O. Klopp, Andreas Gryphius als Dramatiker (1851); J. Hermann, Über Andreas Gryphius (1851); T. Wissowa, Beiträge zur Kenntnis von Andreas Gryphius’ Leben und Schriften (1876); J. Wysocki, Andreas Gryphius et la tragédie allemande au XVIIᵉ siècle; and V. Mannheimer, Die Lyrik des Andreas Gryphius (1904).
GUACHARO (said to be an obsolete Spanish word signifying
one that cries, moans or laments loudly), the Spanish-American
name of what English writers call the oil-bird, the Steatornis
caripensis of ornithologists, a very remarkable bird, first described
by Alexander von Humboldt (Voy. aux rég. équinoxiales
i. 413, Eng. trans. iii. 119; Obs. Zoologie ii. 141, pl. xliv.)
from his own observation and from examples obtained by
Aimé J. A. Bonpland, on the visit of those two travellers, in
September 1799, to a cave near Caripé (at that time a monastery
of Aragonese Capuchins) some forty miles S.E. of Cumaná
on the northern coast of South America. A few years later it
was discovered, says Latham (Gen. Hist. Birds, 1823, vii. 365),
to inhabit Trinidad, where it appears to bear the name of Diablotin;[1]
but by the receipt of specimens procured at Sarayacu
in Peru, Cajamarca in the Peruvian Andes, and Antioquia
in Colombia (Proc. Zool. Society, 1878, pp. 139, 140; 1879,
p. 532), its range has been shown to be much greater than had
been supposed. The singularity of its structure, its curious
habits, and its peculiar economical value have naturally attracted
no little attention from zoologists. First referring it to the genus
Caprimulgus, its original describer soon saw that it was no true
goatsucker. It was subsequently separated as forming a subfamily,
and has at last been regarded as the type of a distinct
family, Steatornithidae—a view which, though not put forth till
1870 (Zool. Record, vi. 67), seems now to be generally deemed
correct. Its systematic position, however, can scarcely be
considered settled, for though on the whole its predominating
alliance may be with the Caprimulgidae, nearly as much affinity
may be traced to the Strigidae, while it possesses some characters
in which it differs from both (Proc. Zool. Society, 1873, pp.
526-535). About as big as a crow, its plumage exhibits the
blended tints of chocolate-colour and grey, barred and pencilled
with dark-brown or black, and spotted in places with white,
that prevail in the two families just named. The beak is hard,
strong and deeply notched, the nostrils are prominent, and the
gape is furnished with twelve long hairs on each side. The legs
and toes are comparatively feeble, but the wings are large. In
habits the guacharo is wholly nocturnal, slumbering by day
in deep and dark caverns which it frequents in vast numbers.
Towards evening it arouses itself, and, with croaking and
clattering which has been likened to that of castanets, it
approaches the exit of its retreat, whence at nightfall it issues
in search of its food, which, so far as is known, consists entirely
of oily nuts or fruits, belonging especially to the genera Achras,
Aiphanas, Laurus and Psichotria, some of them sought, it would
seem, at a very great distance, for Funck (Bull. Acad. Sc. Bruxelles
xi. pt. 2, pp. 371-377) states that in the stomach of one he
obtained at Caripé he found the seed of a tree which he believed
did not grow nearer than 80 leagues. The hard, indigestible
seed swallowed by the guacharo are found in quantities on the
floor and the ledges of the caverns it frequents, where many of
them for a time vegetate, the plants thus growing being etiolated
from want of light, and, according to travellers, forming a
singular feature of the gloomy scene which these places present.
The guacharo is said to build a bowl-like nest of clay, in which
it lays from two to four white eggs, with a smooth but lustreless
surface, resembling those of some owls. The young soon after
they are hatched become a perfect mass of fat, and while yet in
the nest are sought by the Indians, who at Caripé, and perhaps
elsewhere, make a special business of taking them and extracting
the oil they contain. This is done about midsummer, when
by the aid of torches and long poles many thousands of the
young birds are slaughtered, while their parents in alarm and
rage hover over the destroyers’ heads, uttering harsh and
deafening cries. The grease is melted over fires kindled at the
cavern’s mouth, run into earthen pots, and preserved for use
in cooking as well as for the lighting of lamps. It is said to be
pure and limpid, free from any disagreeable taste or smell, and
capable of being kept for a year without turning rancid. In
Trinidad the young are esteemed a great delicacy for the table
by many, though some persons object to their peculiar scent,
which resembles that of a cockroach (Blatta), and consequently
refuse to eat them. The old birds also, according to E. C.
Taylor (Ibis, 1864, p. 90), have a strong crow-like odour. But
one species of the genus Steatornis is known.
In addition to the works above quoted valuable information about this curious bird may be found under the following references: L’Herminier, Ann. Sc. Nat. (1836), p. 60, and Nouv. Ann. Mus. (1838), p. 321; Hautessier, Rev. Zool. (1838), p. 164; J. Müller, Monatsb. Berl. Acad. (1841), p. 172, and Archiv für Anat. (1862), pp. 1-11; des Murs, Rev. zool. (1843), p. 32, and Ool. Orn. pp. 260-263; Blanchard, Ann. Mus. (1859), xi. pl. 4, fig. 30; König-Warthausen, Journ. für Orn. (1868), pp. 384-387; Goering, Vargasia (1869), pp. 124-128; Murie, Ibis (1873), pp. 81-86. (A. N.)
GUACO, Huaco or Guao, also Vejuco and Bejuco, terms
applied to various Central and South American and West Indian
plants, in repute for curative virtues. The Indians and negroes
of Colombia believe the plants known to them as guaco to
have been so named after a species of kite, thus designated in
imitation of its cry, which they say attracts to it the snakes
that serve it principally for food; they further hold the tradition
that their antidotal qualities were discovered through the
observation that the bird eats of their leaves, and even spreads
the juice of the same on its wings, during contests with its
prey. The disputes that have arisen as to what is “the true
guaco” are to be attributed mainly to the fact that the names
of the American Indians for all natural objects are generic, and
their genera not always in coincidence with those of naturalists.
Thus any twining plant with a heart-shaped leaf, white and green
above and purple beneath, is called by them guaco (R. Spruce,
in Howard’s Neueva Quinologia, “Cinchona succirubra,” p. 22,
note). What is most commonly recognized in Colombia as
guaco, or Vejuco del guaco, would appear to be Mikania Guaco
(Humboldt and Bonpland, Pl. équinox, ii. 84, pl. 105, 1809),
a climbing Composite plant of the tribe Eupatoriaceae, affecting
moist and shady situations, and having a much-branched and
deep-growing root, variegated, serrate, opposite leaves and dull-white
flowers, in axillary clusters. The whole plant emits a
disagreeable odour. It is stated that the Indians of Central
America, after having “guaconized” themselves, i.e. taken
guaco, catch with impunity the most dangerous snakes, which
writhe in their hands as though touched by a hot iron (B. Seemann,
Hooker’s Journ. of Bot. v. 76, 1853). The odour alone of guaco
- ↑ Not to be confounded with the bird so called in the French Antilles, which is a petrel (Oestrelata).
