TOUCAN 977 



of the Toucan's discovery it is needless to go.^ Additional particulars 

 were supplied by many succeeding writers, until in 1834 Gould com- 

 pleted his Monograph of the family ^ (with an anatomical appendix 

 by Owen), to which, in 1835, some supplementary plates were added; 

 and in 1854 he finished a second and improved edition. The latest 

 systematic work on Toucans is by Mr. Sclater (Cat. B. Br. Mus. 

 xix. pp. 122-160), which agrees for the most part with that of 

 Cassin {Proc. Acad. Fhilad. 1867, pp. 100-124), and five genera 

 and 59 species of the Family are recognized. There can be little 

 doubt that the bird first figured and described by the earliest 

 authors above named is the it. toco of nearly all ornithologists, and 

 as such is properly regarded as the type of the genus and therefore 

 of the Family. It is one of the largest, measuring 2 feet in length, 

 and has a wide range throughout Guiana and a great part of 

 Brazil. The huge beak, looking like the great claw of a lobster, 

 more than 8 inches long and 3 high at the base, is of a deep orange 

 colour, with a large black oval spot near the tip. The eye, with 

 its double iris of green and yellow, has a broad blue orbit, and is 

 surrounded by a bare space of deep orange skin. The plumage 

 generally is black, but the throat is white, tinged with yellow and 

 commonly edged beneath with red ; the upper tail-coverts are 

 white, and the lower scarlet. In other species of the genus, 14 in 

 number, the bill is mostly particoloured — green, yellow, red, 

 chestnut, blue and black variously combining so as often to form 

 a ready diagnosis ; but some of these tints are very fleeting and 

 often leave little or no trace after death. Alternations of the 

 brighter colours are also displayed in the feathers of the throat, 

 breast and tail-coverts, so as to be in like manner characteristic of 

 the species, and in several the bare space round the eye is yellow, 

 green, blue or lilac. The sexes are almost alike in coloration, and 

 externally diff"er chiefly in size, the males being largest. The tail 

 is nearly square or moderately rounded. The so-called Hill- 

 Toucans form another genus, Andigena, and consist of 6 species 



^ One point of some interest may, however, be noticed. In 1705 Plot {N. H. 

 Oxfordsh. p. 182) recorded a Toucan found within two miles of Oxford in 1(344, 

 the body of which was given to the repository in the medical school of that 

 university, where, he said, "it is still to be seen." Already in 1700 Leigh 

 {Lancash. i. p. 195, Birds, tab. 1, fig. 2) had figured another which he said had 

 been found dead on the coast of that county about two years before ; but his 

 figure is copied from Willughby. The bird is easily kept in captivity, and no 

 doubt from early times many were brought alive to Europe. Beside the one 

 dissected by Pare, as above mentioned, Job. Faber, in his additions to Hernan- 

 dez's work on the Natural History of Mexico (1651), figures (p. 697) one seen 

 and described by Puteus (Dal Pozzo) at Pontainebleau. 



2 Of this the brothers Sturm in 1841 published at Nuremberg a German 

 version. 



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