314 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1915. 



dashed with black, j^ellow, red, white, or bhie, 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, chest- 

 nut, green, and white. Pteroglossus, as an entire group, is garbed 

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

 green, Avith bills of enormous relative size and painted like a barber's 

 pole. Bhamphastos, containing the biggest of all toucans, with 

 beaks like elongated lobster-claws, of all imaginable and many un- 

 imaginable 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 w^ith 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 en- 

 countered. The little green snarlers of the genus AulacorhampJms, 

 whose harsh voice seemed to me to sound like the slow tearing of a 

 yard of oilcloth, 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 50 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. Wlien I finally re- 

 trieved him he was some 40 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 locat- 

 ing 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, the extravagant wealth of size, form, and color in tropical 

 vegetation offers quite as much wonderment and occupation as do the 

 birds themselves; and here wei have a diversion of the attention, 

 however unconscious it may be, that certainly has its effect. Added 

 to this, there are actual variations in the accustomed color of the 

 foliage that repeat with greatest suggestiveness any red, yellow, 

 blue, green, orange, or other color that may be present on a bird. 

 No toucan's throat is yellower than the light shining through a 

 thin leaf, and when leaf forms are further complicated, like those 

 of the Dendrophilum creepers, by having great holes that let through 



