462 



ANIMALS OF EGA 



barbets all of whose members are fruit-eaters. On the 

 Amazons, where these birds are very common, no one 

 pretends ever to have seen a Toucan walking on the 

 ground in its natural state, much less acting the part of 

 a swimming or wading bird. Professor Owen found, on 

 dissection, that the gizzard in Toucans is not so well 

 adapted for the trituration of food as it is in other vege- 

 table feeders, and concluded, therefore, as Broderip had 

 observed the habit of chewing the cud in a tame bird, 

 that the great toothed bill was useful in holding and re- 

 masticating the food. The bill can scarcely be said to 

 be a very good contrivance for seizing and crushing small 

 birds, or taking them from their nests in crevices of trees, 

 habits which have been imputed to Toucans by some 

 writers. The hollow, cellular structure of the interior 

 of the bill, its curved and clumsy shape, and the deficiency 

 of force and precision when it is used to seize objects, 

 suggest a want of fitness, if this be the function of the 

 member. But fruit is undoubtedly the chief food of 

 Toucans, and it is in reference to their mode of obtaining 

 it that the use of their uncouth bills is to be sought. 



Flowers and fruits on the crowns of the large trees of 

 South American forests grow, principally, towards the 

 end of slender twigs, which will not bear any considerable 

 weight ; all animals, therefore, which feed upon fruit, 

 or on insects contained in flowers, must, of course, have 

 some means of reaching the ends of the stalks from a 

 distance. Monkeys obtain their food by stretching forth 

 their long arms and, in some instances, their tails, to 

 bring the fruit near to their mouths. Humming-birds 

 are endowed with highly-perfected organs of flight, with 

 corresponding muscular development, by which they are 

 enabled to sustain themselves on the wing before blossoms 

 whilst rifling them of their contents. These strong-flying 

 creatures, however, will, whenever they get a chance, 

 remain on their perches whilst probing neighbouring 

 flowers for insects. Trogons have feeble wings, and a 

 dull, inactive temperament. Their mode of obtaining 

 food is to station themselves quietly on low branches in 

 the gloomy shades of the forest, and eye the fruits on the 

 surrounding trees, darting off, as if with an effort, every 

 time they wish to seize a mouthful, and returning to 



^ Capitoninse, G. R. Gray. 



