Impressions of the Voices of Tropical Birds 



By LOUIS AGASSIZ FUERTES 



Illustrated by the Author 



FIFTH PAPER.— TOUCANS, CUCKOOS, TROGONS. MOTMOTS, AND THEIR ALLIES 



THE principal sensation one gets in the tropical forest is the mystery of 

 the unknown voices. Many of these remain forever mysteries unless 

 one stays long and seeks diligently. I am very sure that many sounds I 

 now tentatively attribute to certain birds really belong to others, though several 

 are among the striking sounds. 



The Toucans are all noisy birds, and for the most part they are all very 

 boldly marked with strongly contrasting colors, all but the small green members 

 of the genus Aulacorhamphus being brightly dashed with black, yellow, red, 

 white or blue, with bills as bizarre as they are huge. Andigena is commonly 

 called the "Siete-color" — seven color — from his Joseph's coat of black, blue, 

 red, yellow, chestnut, green, and white. Pteroglossus, as an entire group, is 

 garbed in the most strikingly contrasting patterns of black, yellow, red, and 

 green, with bills of enormous relative size and painted like a barber's pole. 

 Rhamphastos, containing the biggest of all Toucans, with beaks like elongated 

 lobster-claws, of all imaginable and many unimaginable designs in black and 

 yellow, white, red, blue, green, or orange, are themselves principally black, 

 trimmed with a yellow or white throat and breast, and lesser patches of 

 red and white or yellow at the base of the tail. One would naturally suppose 

 that with these flashy colors and their noisy habits and large size. Toucans 

 would be among the easiest of birds to find; but this is far from the case. I 

 think we all found them to be as hard to locate, after their calls had given us 

 their general whereabouts, as any of the birds we encountered. The little 

 green snarlers of the genus Aulacorhamphus, whose harsh voice seemed to me to 

 sound like the slow tearing of a yard of oil-cloth, were in many places quite 

 common; but only those whose movements disclosed them ever fell into our 

 hands, for it was about hopeless to discover them when they were sitting quiet 

 among the leafage. The blue-breasted group, Andigena, we encountered only 

 once or twice. The only one I saw I got from the steep trail in the Central 

 Andes, and it was to the rattling accompaniment of horns of some fifty pack- 

 oxen we were passing on the narrow road. The excitement the shot caused 

 among the startled beasts gave me other things to think of, at the moment, 

 and I do not now remember whether my "siete-color" had a voice or not. When 

 I finally retrieved him, he was some forty yards or more down the steep and 

 tangled mountain-side. In this connection, it may not be out of place to offer 

 one suggestion in explanation of the great difficulty of locating these large and 

 apparently gaudily colored birds in the tropical woods, and in retrieving them 

 when shot. 



To our northern eyes, used only to green leaves seldom larger than our hand, 



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