TOUCANS AND HORNBILLS 



prominent bills like the hornbills of India and Africa ; 

 but their feet have the toes in twos, one pair behind and 

 one in front ; they are like the cuckoos and some other 

 arboreal birds, " zygodactyle." The hornbills have a 

 foot which is efficient for grasping purposes, but three 

 toes closely applied look forwards and only one back- 

 ward. Still, the two families of birds are not very 

 remote, and the one takes the place of the other in 

 forests of the tropics of New and Old Worlds. You can 

 tell a hornbill, as its very name denotes, by its huge 

 bill. This would seem to necessitate an unusually 

 strong head to sustain it. As a matter of fact, additional 

 resistant power is arrived at in these birds by a complete 

 fusion between the two first vertebrae of the neck, 

 which are in nearly all other birds separate and move- 

 able, the one upon the other. Besides, the conviction 

 of impossible top-heaviness forced upon the uninformed 

 mind by the look of a hornbill is dissipated when the 

 dried skull of one of these birds is inspected. It is then 

 seen to be formed of the most delicate bony substance, 

 arranged in a loose network of bony thread. To watch 

 a hornbill hop lightly from bough to bough finally sets 

 the mind at rest, and shows that Nature here, as else- 

 where, has known what she was about in framing the 

 hornbill. The bizarre suggestion of the bill, with its 

 superincumbent casque (not present, however, in all 

 hornbills), is not borne out by an acquaintance with 

 the way of life of the bird. It lives largely upon fruits, 

 which a long bill enables it to wrench off from their 

 native branches, the leverage being thereby increased. 

 Large though these birds are, they are exceedingly 

 light, and for reasons revealed to the anatomist. When 

 a hornbill is dissected, it is only necessary to remove 

 the skin from the leg, when all the muscles, nerves, and 

 vessels stand out as if separated by painstaking use of 

 the scalpel. The reason for this is that the flesh is dry, 



