TOUCANS. 573 



tap with their bills, the blows being very slowly repeated, with perhaps an interval of 

 ten seconds between each." Colonel Legge also states that there are generally a few 

 bents and grass-stalks collected for the eggs to lie on, but they are scarcely worthy 

 of the na-me of nest. Mr. Hume once discovered in the nest-hole made by a blue- 

 faced barbet a large pad consisting almost exclusively of coarse vegetable fibre, 

 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. 



Crimson-Headed Like the African barbets, which are called tinker - birds, the 

 Barbet. crimson-headed barbet (Xantholcema hcematocephala) gets its name of 

 coppersmith from its metallic note, which much resembles the clinking 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 cross-wise 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, measuring 

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

 green streaks on the flanks. The head is variegated in colour, 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, w^ith 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 RHAMPHASTIDJE. 



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- 



