HOMES OF TOUCANS 203 



Occasionally an egg is cracked or a nestling is lamed, but 

 usually they are in perfect condition. 



So in the present case, after falling from a height of 

 fifty feet, knocking and banging around a deep cavity and 

 at the last rebound being flung almost out of the entrance, 

 the nestling toucans were quite unharmed. Never for an 

 instant did they cease their cries for food. This kept up 

 all day and at intervals throughout the night. From four 

 o'clock in the morning it was unceasing, and we had to ban- 

 ish the young birds to a distance in order to work without 

 distraction. Only the brain-fever bird of India excels the 

 hunger call of a young toucan in sheer maddening, irritating 

 reiteration. It was a never-varying, raucous auuuuuk! 

 auuuuuk! auuuuuk! auuuuk! repeated over and over. AVhen 

 food was given the harsh cry was broken into series of more 

 liquid gurgles. Then followed a moment of silence as the 

 beakful of berries was swallowed, and the next instant 

 auuuuuk! auuuuuk! began again. 



If one of the hourly feedings was missed, the young 

 toucans went into fits of rage and flung themselves about, 

 biting one another or the lining of the artificial nest. Their 

 usual position was resting on the heel-pads with the feet and 

 toes held up helplessly in mid-air, the wings dangling at the 

 sides, the back humped and the bill pointing forward. Most 

 absurd was the tail, as innocent of feathers as the rest of the 

 bird, which was slanted upward and forward until it fairly 

 touched the back. When disturbed and nudged, the beak 

 was opened, raised obliquely, and repeatedly stabbed up- 

 ward with the blind confidence that food would be forth- 

 coming from exactly that point in all space. Simultane- 

 ously, the tail wagged vigorously. It is easy to describe the 

 separate motions. It is quite impossible to convey the weird 

 unbirdlike effect of the whole performance. 



The helpless condition of the feet was the most inex- 

 plicable thing about these birds. They invariably rested on 

 the hind part of the body and on the two heel-pads, a tri- 



