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for all the food it ate, and I never saw it feed from the pan itself.

Often still smaller birds got into the aviary with the Toucan,

and whenever they did so he would offer them food. On the

other side of him were the Parrakeets, and he was just as

attentive to them, especially so to a female Bulla-bulla.


I was often much surprised at the poor, uninviting-looking

berries and fruits that, not only Toucans but almost all the fruit¬

eating birds in tropical S. America, lived on. It seemed a wonder

that they could get any nourishment out of such dry tasteless-

looking food, as most of it was. It was the sort of food you

would expect birds at home to be driven to eat, when all other

things had failed, during a severe winter. There were few or

none of those luscious fruits one imagines to be so abundant in

tropical forests. The forest trees make a grand show with their

beautiful and exquisitely-scented flowers, and lead one to expect

equally grand things in the way of fruit ; but like many other

things in this world, the anticipation exceeds the reality.


Toucans, like Macaws, choose the highest sites they can

obtain for their nests, indeed, they take possession of the latter

birds’. Woodpeckers are the first constructors of them ; then

follow the Parrots, who enlarge them to suit their requirements ;

after that the Toucans dispute with the Trogons and other birds

for the possession of them ; in fadt, one would imagine that

there must be great rivalry for these nests among non-boring

birds who build in holes, as the Toucans, Trogons, Umbrella

Birds, and many others do.


Although Toucans are very numerous on the Western side

of Ecuador, there are not nearly so many species there as on

the Eastern side, if only counting those species which are found

•down to the foot of the Andes ; for if we counted those also

which are found down the rivers to where they join the Amazon,

but in territory claimed by Ecuador, they would include most

of the Brazilian species also.


The largest but not the commonest of those from the

Western side, is the Rhamphastus iocard, a bird with a rich

sulphur-coloured breast, edged with cream and red where it joins

the black of the underparts. The upper tail coverts are white,

and the under ones red. The bill is serrated, and the lower

mandible wholly black, as also is the lower half of the upper one,

the black being widest at the base, the other part of it greenish

yellow with a little blue down the centre. The bare skin around

the eyes is a very fine shade of }^ellowish green, and the eyes

are pale blue. These birds seem to live in the depths of the



