TOUCANS IN EVOLUTION 49 



The most striking beaks found among vegfetable- 

 feeding birds are of course those of the Toucans 

 and Hornbills, groups which are constantly confused 

 by people unacquainted with birds, and very 

 naturally, since both are so conspicuously over- 

 beaked, so to speak, that the differences between 

 them are quite over-shadowed by their resemblance 

 in the prominent feature, and their general habits 

 are also much alike, both groups being tree-haunters 

 and fruit-eaters, though they take animal food as 

 well. The Hornbills, however, have three toes in 

 front and one behind, the front ones being more 

 or less connected in a common skin, as in Kingfishers, 

 to which they seem to have some affinity ; the 

 Toucans have their toes in pairs, like Woodpeckers, 

 with which they are closely connected by the 

 intermediate family of Barbets (Cafitonida). In 

 fact a very interesting evolutionary exhibit might 

 be made up by any museum possessing plenty of 

 specimens of all three families, so as to show the 

 gradation from the Woodpeckers into the Wrynecks, 

 the Barbets with their Crow-like or in some cases 

 almost Wryneck-like bills, and the very unbroken 

 series of Toucans, ranging from forms like the 

 Toucanets (Selenidera), which, in bill and body, 

 hardly exceed the biggest Barbets, of the genus 

 Megalama, to the great black, enormous-billed birds 

 of the genus Rhanvphastos, the most typical Toucans 

 of all. 



In the Hornbills there is no gradation into an- 

 other family altogether, but there is much difference 



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