194 HISTORY OF 



white on the breast, and the black on the belly, 

 is a space of red feathers, in the form of a new 

 moon with its horns upwards. The legs, feet, and 

 claws, are of an ash colour ; and the toes stand like 

 those of the parrot, two before, and two behind. 



It is reported by travellers, that this bird, though 

 furnished with so formidable a beak, is harmless 

 and gentle, being so easily made tame as to sit 

 and hatch its young in houses. It feeds chiefly 

 upon pepper, which it devours very greedily, 

 gorging itself in such a manner that it voids it 

 crude and unconcocted. This, however, is no ob- 

 jection to the natives from using it again ; they 

 even prefer it before that pepper which is fresh 

 gathered from the tree, and seem persuaded that 

 the strength and heat of the pepper is qualified 

 by the bird, and that all its noxious qualities are 

 thus exhausted. 



Whatever be the truth of this report, nothing 

 is more certain than that the toucan lives only 

 upon a vegetable diet ; and in a domestic state, to 

 which it is frequently brought in the warm coun- 

 tries where it is bred, it is seen to prefer such food 

 to all other. Pozzo, who bred one tame, asserts, 

 that it leaped up and down, wagged the tail, and 

 cried with a voice resembling that of a magpie. 

 It fed upon the same things that parrots do j but 

 was most greedy of grapes, which being plucked 

 off one by one, and thrown into the air, it would 

 most dexterously catch before they fell to the 

 ground. Its bill, he adds, was hollow, and upon 

 that account very light, so that it had but little 

 strength in so apparently formidable a weapon, 



