HOMES OF TOUCANS 187 



to which we confined our studies we found the following 

 five species of toucans : 



Red-billed Toucan Rhamphastos monilis Muller 

 Sulphur-and- white-breasted 



Toucan JRhamphastos vitcllinus Licht. 



Black-necked Aracari Pteroglossus aracari (Linn.) 



Green Aracari Pteroglossus viridis ( Linn. ) 



Guiana Toucanet S elenidera culik (Wagler) 



Between the dates of March 1.5 and JNIay 10, we had 

 evidence, either direct, or indisputably circumstantial, of the 

 breeding of all five species, and had secured both eggs and 

 young birds. But these results came only after days and 

 weeks of hard, unremitting search, of long tramps wholly in 

 vain, and of many consecutive hovu-s of steady watching 

 through heat and rain. 



GREEN ARACARI TOUCAN 



Pteroglossus viridis 



On the eighth of March, Hartley returned to Kala- 

 coon with the exciting news that he had seen small aracari 

 toucans entering a hole high up in a dead tree. This was 

 the commonest species of toucan in Bartica district, and 

 this observation was the first to arouse the hopes of an occu- 

 pied nest. The dead tree stood at the edge of the jungle 

 about a mile away, and was one of the many which had been 

 killed by direct exposure to the sun's rays when the clear- 

 ing had been made nearby. Its barkless branches stretched 

 high above the surrounding massed foliage, bleached, chalky 

 w^iite, and seasoned hard as iron. On one of the uppermost 

 angles this pair of toucans perched, and worked in alternate 

 shifts at an old woodpecker's hole. They propped them- 

 selves against the tree, thrust their great beaks within the 

 hole; and presently drew out and dropped bits of loose, rot- 

 ten wood. Thus began the nesting of the green aracaris 

 on March 8. 



