192 TROPICAL WILD LIFE IN BRITISH GUIANA 



less man, three dogs, two women and four children, two 

 trumpeters, a parrot and a curassow. I looked eagerly about 

 for the young toucanets but the benab held no other visible 

 living creatures than those I have enumerated. Upon in- 

 quiry I found that both birds had died that very morning 

 and had been thrown into the river, where of course the perai 

 fish had devoured them at once. I asked to see the nesting 

 tree and was led to a tall palm with a good-sized hole in the 

 western side of the trunk, about thirty feet up. At the edge 

 of the cassava clearing, three toucanets were calling and 

 flying restlessly about, and the Indian woman pointed to 

 these as the owners of the hole. The young birds, the squaw 

 said, had no feathers. This was April 15th, and sums up 

 our experience with nesting toucanets. 



A month later we found this species in full molt, shed- 

 ding not only the body and wing feathers, but scaling off 

 pieces of the beak as well. 



RED-BILLED TOUCAN 



Rhampkastos monilis 



The fates were quite impartial in their distribution of 

 favors, and the next toucanine thrill came to Howes as he 

 was passing along a trail with mind and eyes concentrated 

 on no higher forms of life than wasps and bees. From al- 

 most the first walk I had taken in this part of the jungle 

 I had observed and tried to mark down some of the half 

 dozen big red-billed toucans which fed, and called and 

 climbed hereabouts. But they continued to climb, or call 

 or feed as the case might be, and utterly refused to reveal 

 any interest in a possible mate, or nest, or young. Yet the 

 fact that day after day they did not roam widely, but kept 

 within sight or hearing of the trail was suspicious enough 

 to keep alive our constant interest. 



Sitting quietly among the undergrowth near the trail- 

 side, Howes was endeavoring to follow the gyrations of a 



