350 ANIMALS OF NEIGHBOURHOOD OF EGA. Cuap. XII. 
confiding disposition under domestication, in which qualities my pet 
seemed to be almost equal to parrots. I allowed Tocdno to go free 
about the house, contrary to my usual practice with pet animals; he 
never, however, mounted my working-table after a smart correction 
which he received the first time he did so. He used to sleep on the 
top of a box in a corner of the room, in the usual position of these birds, 
namely, with the long tail laid right over on the back, and the beak 
thrust underneath the wing. He ate of everything that we eat, beef, 
turtle, fish, farinha, fruit, and was a constant attendant at our table—a 
cloth spread on a mat. His appetite was most ravenous, and his 
powers of digestion quite wonderful. He got to know the meal hours 
to a nicety, and we found it very difficult, after the first week or two, to 
keep him away from the dining-room, where he had become very 
impudent and troublesome. We tried to shut him out by inclosing him 
in the back-yard, which was separated by a high fence from the street 
on which our front door opened, but he used to climb the fence and 

Curl-crested Toucan. 
hop round by a long circuit to the dining-room, making his appearance 
with the greatest punctuality as the meal was placed on the table. 
He acquired the habit afterwards of rambling about the street near our 
house, and one day he was stolen, so we gave him up for lost. But 
two days afterwards he stepped through the open doorway at dinner 
hour, with his old gait, and sly, magpie-like expression, having escaped 
from the house where he had been guarded by the person who had 
stolen him, and which was situated at the further end of the village. 
The Curl-crested Toucan (Pteroglossus Beauharnatsit).—Of the four 
smaller toucans, or arassaris, found near Ega, the Pteroglossus flavi- 
rostris is perhaps the most beautiful in colours, its breast being adorned 
with broad belts of rich crimson and black; but the most curious 
species by far is the Curl-crested, or Beauharnais Toucan. The 
feathers on the head of this singular bird are transformed into thin 
horny plates, of a lustrous black colour, curled up at the ends, and 
resembling shavings of steel or ebony wood, the curly crest being 
arranged on the crown in the form of a wig. Mr. Wallace and I first 
met with this species on ascending the Amazons, at the mouth of the 
