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and ornaments, and also for ornamenting their weapons. Some

wear beautiful thick ruffles of the crimson and yellow feathers

round their heads, arms and legs, and carve many quaint neck¬

laces out of parts of the bills. This was the largest species of

Toucan we met with in our travels. They vary immensely in

size, and I am inclined to think there is really a larger and

smaller variety, with a slight difference in the shape of the bill.


I have some large cabinet specimens of this bird, but I measured

a male which had a bill nin. long. I had a very fine one given

to me alive which I kept on the Napo for nearly two months. I

intended to bring it home with me, but it died rather suddenly,


I suspected from eating salt fish. It was a most amusing bird

and although it was caught when fully adult, it was just as

tame as a bird could be. Our hut at the Coca was built high

above the ground on poles and had a wide outer platform

running round it, and the Toucan delighted in going with a

flying hop round and round the hut on this platform. At meal

times it would sit on my knee, or dispute with the dogs and

Trumpeters for the pieces of yuca we threw down. It seldom

flew down to the ground below, and when it did it was merely

for the pleasure of quickly hopping back up the long ladder. It

was a treat to see it chase the fowls off the platform, and after

a time they quite got to know they were not to come up there.

At night it roosted in a bread-fruit tree by the side of the hut,

and for a long time after I first had it, it caused me much

anxiety every night by choosing the most open and exposed

position possible on the tree. We were then in the wet season

and on most nights the rain descended in one deluge, and my fear

that it might, in company with other pets equally stupid in this

respect, get washed from the tree and killed by the force of the

storm caused me to pass many sleepless nights. It would

present a very sorry appearance in the mornings, and was so wet

as to appear to have scarcely a feather on it, but it quickly dried

and never seemed any the worse for its nightly drenching, so I

ceased to trouble about it. It would always get so near to

the end of a branch, that sometimes it would fall off a dozen

times before it finally settled down. When I got up in the

mornings it was always waiting on the platform at the hut door

for its breakfast in company with the Trumpeters, a Hangnest

and some Guaus, and each one vying with the others in their

affectionate greetings.


I wonder if any of our members, who live in a suitable

place in the country, have ever given these birds their liberty in



