Toucans and Aracaris.J 



MUSEUM OF ANIMATED NATURE. 



355 



noise as he made over the remains of the goldfinch. 

 Previous to this operation he had examined his 

 feeding-trough, in which there was nothing but 

 bread, which I saw him take up and reject ; and it 

 appeared to me that he was thus reduced from ne- 

 cessity to the above mode of solacing his palate 

 with animal food. His food consists of bread, 

 boiled vegetables, eggs, and flesh, to which a little 

 bird is now added about every second or third day. 

 He shows a decided preference for animal food, 

 picking out all morsels of that description, and not 

 resorting to the vegetable diet till all the former is 

 exhausted. 



" It is said that the nerves are very much expanded 

 within the internal surface of the bill in these birds; 

 and independently of the sensual enjoyment which 

 the toucan above mentioned appeared to derive 

 from palating his prey, I have observed him fre- 

 quently scratching his bill with his foot, which may 

 be considered as furnishing additional evidence of 

 the sensibility of this organ. While taking his prey 

 he never used his foot for the purpose of conveying 

 it either to his bill or elsewhere. The bill was the 

 sole vehicle and the organ actively employed; the 

 foot merely confined the prey on the perch. 



'• But there is yet another of the peculiarities of 

 this bird which cannot be passed over in silence. 

 When he settles himself to roost, he sits a short 

 time with his tail retroverted, so as to make an acute 

 angle with the line of his back; he then turns his 

 bill over his right shoulder, nestling it in the soft 

 plumage of the back (on which last the under man- 

 dible rests"), till the bill is so entirely covered that 

 no trace of it is visible. When disturbed, he did 

 not drop his tail, but almost immediately returned 

 his bill to the comfortable nidus from which on 

 being disturbed he had withdrawn it. He broke a 

 short time ago some of his tail-feathers, and the 

 proprietor informed me that before that accident 

 the bird when at roost retroverted his tail so en- 

 tirely that the upper surface of the tail-feathers 

 lay over and came in contact, with the plumage of 

 the back ; so that the bird had the appearance of a 

 ball of feathers, to which indeed when I saw him he 

 bore a vpry considerable resemblance. The pro- 

 prietor informs me that he always roosts in the 

 samfc way." (' Zool. Journ.' vol. i.). 



In a subsequent volume (ii.) Mr. Vigors gives 

 the following interesting account of a toucan, Ram- 

 phastos Ariel ( Vig.), which he kept in a state of 

 domestication for many years : — 



"With respect to the manners of my bird, I can 

 add but little to the very accurate and interesting 

 account of those of a species nearly allied to it, 

 which has appeared in a preceding number of this 

 Journal.* I have not allowed it to be indulged in 

 that disposition to animal food which so strikingly 

 belongs to this family. I find in fact that it thrives 

 sufficiently well upon a vegetable diet ; and I fear 

 that if it should once be allowed any other, it 

 would be difficult 1o restrain its inclination for it 

 within moderate limits. Eggs are the only animal 

 food with which it. has been supplied since it came 

 into my possession. Of these it is particularly fond, 

 and they are generally mixed up in his ordinary 

 food, which consists of bread, rice, potatoes, Ger- 

 man paste, and similar substances. He delights in 

 fruits of all kinds. During the period when these 

 were fresh, he fed almost exclusively on them; and 

 even in the present winter months he exhibits great 

 gratification in being offered pieces of apples, 

 oranges, or preserved fruits of any description. 

 These he generally holds for a short time at the ex- 

 tremity of his bill, touching them with apparent 

 delight with his slender and feathered tongue, and 

 then conveying them by a sudden upward jerk to 

 his throat, where they are caught and instantly 

 swallowed. His natural propensity to preying upon 

 animals, although not indulged, is still strongly con- 

 spicuous. When another bird approaches his cage, 

 or even a skin or preserved specimen is presented 

 to him, he exhibits considerable excitement. He 

 raises himself up, erects his feathers, and utters that 

 ' hollow clattering sound' noticed by Mr. Broderip, 

 which seems to be the usual expression of delight 

 in these birds; the iri.! - ftf his eyes at the same 

 time expand, and he t mtta ready to dart upon his 

 prey, if the bars of his cage permitted his approach. 

 On one occasion, wh^a a small bird was placed 

 by chance over his caj a ifcht, he showed great 

 restlessness, as if aware of the neighbourhood of 

 the bird ; and he would not be composed until the 

 cause of his anxiety was i!ii,r-overed and removed. 



"When in his cage, bti h ,'eculiarly gentle and 

 tractable, suffers him; e played with, and 



feeds from the hand. to! -his cage he is wild 

 and timid. In general itive and lively ; and, 



contrary to what might be expecied, from the ap- 

 parent disproportion of the bill and the seemingly 

 clumsy shape of the bird-, ©i' 'his genus, as they are 

 usually set up or repre- led in figures, his appear- 

 ance is not only gracefu 1 but his movements, as he 



* Mr. Broderij. ca above given. 



glides from perch to perch, are light and svlph- 

 like; so much so as to have suggested *.o an intel- 

 ligent friend who witnessed them the specific name 

 which I have ventured to assign him. He keeps 

 himself in beautiful plumage, his lighter colours 

 being strikingly vivid, and the deep black of his 

 upper body in particular being always bright and 

 glossy. For this fine condition he seems to be 

 much indebted to his fondness for bathing. Every 

 day he immerses himself in cold water with ap- 

 parent pleasure, even in this severe weather; and 

 in no respect indeed does he appear to suffer by the 

 transition from his own warm climate to our uncon- 

 genial atmosphere. 



" Besides the ' hollow clatt ering noise,' as my friend 

 Mr. Broderip so expressively terms the usual sounds 

 of these birds, he utters at times a hoarse and some- 

 what discordant cry when he happens to be hungry, 

 and to see his food about to be presented to him. 

 On such occasions he stands erect, raising his head 

 in the air, and half opening his bill as he emits this 

 cry. These are the only sounds I have heard him 

 utter ; and in neither can I say that I have detected 

 any similarity, or even approach, to the word Tou- 

 can, as has sometimes been asserted, and from 

 whence the trivial name of the genus has been sup- 

 posed to originate. Neither have I been able to 

 vprify another observation which has been advanced 

 respecting these birds, that the bill is compressible 

 between the fingers in the living bird. The bill, 

 notwithstanding the lightness of its substance, is firm, 

 and capable of grasping an object with much 

 strength. The mode in which Mr. Broderip de- 

 scribes his toucan as having broken the limbs of the 

 bird which he was about to devour, by ' a strong la- 

 teral wrench,' sufficiently shows that, the bill is not 

 deficient in power. Indeed I generally observe that 

 my bird takes what is offered him rather by the sides 

 than by the point of his bill ; and, I suspect that 

 much of the powers of that member are centred in 

 this lateral motion. The serration of the edges also 

 may be supposed to tend to these peculiar powers. 

 The manner in which he composes himselfto rest is 

 represented in the accompanying plates. Since the 

 cold weather has commenced, he lias been brought 

 into a room with a fire, and the unusual light seems 

 to have interfered with his general habits ; he does 

 not go to rest as early or as regularly as was his cus- 

 tom ; and he sometimes even feeds at a late hour. 

 During the warmer months, however, when he was 

 more free from interruption, his habits were singu- 

 larly regular. As the dusk of the evening approached, 

 he finished his last meal for the day ; took a few 

 turns, as if for exercise after his meal, round the 

 perches of his cage ; and then settled on the highest 

 perch, disposing himself, almost at the moment he 

 alighted on it, in the posture represented, his head 

 drawn in between his shoulders, and his tail turned 

 vertically over his back. (Fig. 1586 represents the 

 bird in this attitude.) 



" In this posture he generally remained about two 

 hours, in a state between sleeping and waking, his 

 eyes for the most part closed, but opening on the 

 slightest interruption. At such times he would al- 

 low himselfto be handled, and would even take any 

 favourite food that was offered him without altering 

 his posture further than by a gentle turn of the 

 head. He would also suffer his tail to be replaced 

 by the hand in its natural downward posture, and 

 would then immediately return it again to its verti- 

 cal position. In these movements the tail seemed 

 to turn as if on a hinge that was operated upon by 

 a spring. At the end of about two hours he began 

 gradually to turn his bill over his right shoulder and 

 to nestle it among the feathers of his back, some- 

 times concealing it completely within the plumage, 

 at other times having a slight portion of the culmen 

 exposed. At the same time he drooped the feathers 

 of his wings and those of the thigh-coverts, so as to 

 encompass the legs and feet ; and thus nearly as- 

 suming the appearance of an oval ball of feaihers, 

 he secured himself against all exposure to cold." 

 (See Fig. 1587.) 



1588. — The Toco Toucan 

 (Ramphastos Toco). This species is the most com- 

 mon in museums, and appears to have been the first 

 with which European naturalists became acquainted. 

 It is one of the largest of its family, measuring twenty 

 seven inches total length, of which the bill is seven 

 inches and a half, and the tail seven : it is at once 

 distinguished by the black oval mark at the tip of the 

 beak. This bird is distributed throughout the whole 

 of wooded districts from the river Plata to Guiana. 



1589. — Cuvier's Toucan 

 (Raniphastos Cuvieri, Gould). This rare species, 

 of which only two or three specimens are extant in 

 Europe, is a native of the wooded borders of the 

 Amazon. The beak is brownish black on the sides, 

 with a large basal belt and culminal line of greenish 

 yellow, the basal belt being bounded behind by a 

 narrow line of black, and before by a broader one 



of deep black, which is only apparent in certain 

 lights; the top of the head "and the whole of the 

 upper surface black ; with the exception of the upper 

 tail-coverts, which are bright orange yellow ; cheeks, 

 throat, and chest white, with a' tinge of greenish 

 yellow, terminated by a band of scarlet ; under sur- 

 face black ; under tail-coverts scarlet. Total length 

 24 inches'; bill 7i, wings 9, tail 6i, tarsi 2. 

 (Gould.) 



1590. — The Curl-crested Aracari 



(Pteroglossus idocomus, Gould). This rare species, 

 one of the most beautiful of its tribe, was first figured* 

 and described by Mr. Gould, in his monograph of 

 the present family. Two examples formed part of 

 a collections of birds brought to this country from 

 Rio de Janeiro. Of these Mr. Gould was so fortu- 

 nate as to obtain the finest, apparently a male, now 

 in the museum of the Zoological Society ; the other 

 is in the British Museum. The native country ol 

 this species is probably the dense forest- belt along 

 the river Amazon, but we have no details respecting 

 its history. The beak of this aracari is lengthened, 

 both mandibles being edged with thickly-set white 

 serratures ; the upper has the culmen of an orange 

 colour, bordered by a longitudinal stripe of dull 

 blue extending nearly to the tip, below which the 

 sides of the mandible are fine orange red ; a white 

 line surrounds the apertures of the nostrils; the 

 under mandible is straw-colour, becoming orange at 

 the tip ; a narrow band of rich chestnut encircles 

 both mandibles at their base. The crown of the 

 head is covered with a crest of curled metal-like 

 feathers without barbs and of an intense glossy 

 black ; as they approach the occiput these singular 

 feathers lose their curled character and become 

 straight, narrow, and spatulate. It is, as Mr. Gould 

 observes, impossible for the pencil to do justice to 

 the brilliancy of these curiously curled appendages, 

 the structure of which appears to consist in a dila- 

 tation of the shaft of each feather, or perhaps an 

 agglutination of the web into one mass. The fea- 

 thers on the cheeks have the same form as those on 

 the occiput, but are more decidedly spatulate, being 

 of a yellowish white colour, tipped at the extremity 

 with black. The occiput and upper tail-coverts are 

 of a deep blood-red ; the chest is delicate yellow, 

 with slight crescent-shaped bars of red ; the back, 

 tail and thighs are olive-green: the quills brown, 

 the tarsi lead-coloured. Total length 18 inches ; 

 bill 4, tail 7J. 



1591.— The Many-banded Aracari 

 (Pteroglossus pluricinclus). This- beautiful bird is 

 a native of Brazil. In the male (lower figure) a 

 broad band of black advances from the nostrils along 

 the whole of the culmen, and forms a narrow belt 

 down the sides of the upper mandible at its base ; 

 the elevated basal margin of the bill is yellow ; the 

 sides of the upper mandible beautiful orange yellow, 

 fading into yellowish white towards the tip; under 

 mandible wholly black with a yellow basal ridge ; 

 head, neck, and chest, black; whole of the upper 

 surface, except the rump, which is scarlet, dark 

 olive-green ; breast marked with two broad bands 

 of black, the upper separated from the throat by an 

 intervening space of yellow dashed with red ; a si- 

 milar but. broader space separates the two bands of 

 black, the lower of which is bounded by scarlet, ad- 

 vancing as far as the thighs, which are brownish 

 olive ; under the tail coverts light yellow ; naked 

 space round the eyes, tarsi, and feet dark lead- 

 colour. 



The female differs from the male in having the 

 ear-coverts brown, and a narrow belt of scarlet bor- 

 dering the black of the throat. 



Total length 20 inches ; bill 4h, wings 6i, tail 81. 

 (Gould.) 



1592. — Humboldt's Aracari 



(Pteroglossits Hiimboldtii, Gould). This species is a 

 native of Brazil, probably nearthe Amazon. Itis de- 

 scribed as follows by Mr. Gould : — Bill large in pro- 

 portion to the body; a band of black occupies the 

 culmen from the base to the tip ; the remainder of the 

 upper mandible of a dull yellowish orange, with the 

 exception of an indefinite mark of black which 

 springs from each serrature, and a fine line of the 

 same colour surrounding it near the base ; lower 

 mandible black, with the exception of the base, which 

 is surrounded with pale yellowish orange; the head, 

 back of the neck, throat, and chest black ; all the 

 upper surface, except a spot of scarlet on the rump, 

 of a dull olive; primaries blackish brown; under 

 surface pale straw-yellow with a slight tinge of green ; 

 thighs chestnut; naked space round the eyes and 

 tarsi lead-colour. Total length about 16* to 17 

 inches : bill 4, wing 5i, tail 6f, tarsi If. 



Mr. Gould's elegant figure of a male is taken 

 from a specimen, supposed to be unique, in the 

 Cabinet of Natural History at Munich.. 



We shall conclude our sketch of the present 

 family with a few general observations. 



2Z2 



