Beaks and Bills 243 



parrot than in any other bird. This arrangement allows 

 much freedom of motion. 



It is not clearly known what use the immense beaks 

 of toucans may serve, although there seems little excuse 

 for this ignorance in those who know the birds in their 

 native haunts. The delicate, spongy texture renders the 



FIG. 187. Toucan, showing enormous bill used perhaps for reaching fruit on 



the tips of branches. 



clumsy-looking appendages exceedingly light, and they 

 are usually banded or marked with brilliant hues, blue, 

 yellow, red, brown, green, or black. But light as the 

 beaks are in these birds, in the unrelated but similarly 

 monstrous-beaked hornbills the weight must be con- 

 siderable, for the first two vertebrae of the neck in these 



