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. Philad. 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 /. 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 differ 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 
1 One point of some interest may, however, be noticed. In 1705 Plot (WV. /7. 
Oxfordsh. p. 182) recorded a Toucan found within two miles of Oxford in 1644, 
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 Paré, as above mentioned, Joh. 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 Fontainebleau. 
2 Of this the brothers Sturm in 1841 published at Nuremberg a German 
version. 
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