1750 THE PICARIAN BIRDS 



apparently strips of the bark of some herbaceous plant, but a few pieces of grass, a 

 piece of red wool, and one or two other similar miscellaneous scraps intermingled in 

 the pad. 



. Like the African barbets, which are called tinker birds, the 



Urimson- 



. . crimson-headed barbet (XanthoUema h&matocephala) gets its name of 



ncftuCQ 



coppersmith from its metallic note, which much resembles the clink- 



Barbet 



ing of metal when struck by a hammer, this note being heard at all 



times of the day, and given out with monotonous regularity. The writer heard one 

 of these birds at Ajmir, and on creeping up beneath the tree in which it was sitting, 

 found it perched crosswise on a branch, like a Passerine, and uttering its note at 

 regular intervals, accompanying each utterance with a jerk of the head, first to the 

 right and then to the left. The coppersmith is one of the smaller barbets, measur- 

 ing about half a foot in length. It is green in color above, pale yellow below, with 

 green streaks on the flanks. The head is variegated in color, the forehead being 

 scarlet, with a black band across the crown extending to the sides of the face, 

 which are ornamented with a yellow streak above and below the eye. The throat 

 is bright yellow, with a scarlet band across the fore-neck. The nesting hole is 

 generally fixed upon by this species in the under side of a hollow bough, and 

 sometimes the eggs are placed at a distance of four or five feet from the original 

 entrance. Jerdon narrates an instance where a pair of these little birds had thus 

 perforated a beam in his vinery, and when they had lengthened the cavity year by 

 year to about five feet they made a second entrance, also from below, about two and 

 a half feet from the nest. This practice of making additional holes for entrance 

 and exit near the nest seems to be adopted by the birds in a wild state also. 



THE TOUCANS 

 Family 



Gaudy in plumage, and ungainly in appearance, these large-billed birds are 

 denizens of the tropical forests of Central and South America, also extending to 

 those of Northern Mexico, almost within sight of the Rio Grande. Resembling 

 the woodpeckers and barbets in the internal structure of their zygodactyle 

 feet, they differ in having the front end of the vomer truncated in the 

 Passerine manner. For the size of its owner the bill among the toucans is of 

 enormous dimensions, giving to these birds an almost ludicrous look. If solid, the 

 appendage would be far too heavy to carry; but in reality it is extremely light, 

 being very thin, and the interior occupied by a fine network of bony fibres, arranged 

 so as to give great strength to the external parietes, without weight. The tongue 

 of these birds is likewise peculiar, the anterior portion consisting of a bony, 

 narrow, thin plate, flattened horizontally, and supported by a process of the tongue 

 bone, which forms a ridge beneath it. Measuring nearly six inches in length in 

 the larger species, at about four inches from its extremity it is obliquely notched 



