TAME TOUCAN 



463 



the same perch. Barbets (Capitoninse) seem to have 

 no especial endowment, either of habits or structure, 

 to enable them to seize fruits ; and in this respect they 

 are similar to the Toucans, if we leave the bill out of 

 question, both tribes having heavy bodies, with feeble 

 organs of flight, so that they are disabled from taking 

 their food on the wing. The purpose of the enormous 

 bill here becomes evident. Barbets and Toucans are 

 very closely related ; indeed a genus has lately been 

 discovered towards the head waters of the Amazons \ 

 which tends to link the two families together ; the superior 

 length of the Toucan's bill gives it an advantage over 

 the Barbet, with its small, conical beak ; it can reach and 

 devour immense quantities of fruit whilst remaining 

 seated, and thus its heavy body and gluttonous appetite 

 form no obstacles to the prosperity of the species. It is 

 worthy of note, that the young of the Toucan has a very 

 much smaller beak than the full-grown bird. The re- 

 lation between the extraordinarily lengthened bill of the 

 Toucan and its mode of obtaining food, is precisely 

 similar to that between the long neck and lips of the 

 Giraffe and the mode of browsing of the animal. The bill 

 of the Toucan can scarcely be considered a very perfectly - 

 formed instrument for the end to which it is applied, as 

 here explained ; but nature appears not to shape organs 

 at once for the functions to which they are now adapted, 

 but avails herself, here of one already-existing structure 

 or instinct, there of another, according as they are handy 

 when need for their further modification arises. 



One day, whilst walking along the principal pathway 

 in the woods near Ega, I saw one of these Toucans seated 

 gravely on a low branch close to the road, and had no 

 difficulty in seizing it with my hand. It turned out to 

 be a runaway pet bird ; no one, however, came to own 

 it, although I kept it in my house for several months. 

 The bird was in a half-starved and sickly condition, but 

 after a few days of good living it recovered health and 

 spirits, and became one of the most amusing pets imag- 

 inable. Many excellent accounts of the habits of tame 

 Toucans, have been published, and therefore I need not 

 describe them in detail, but I do not recollect to have 



Tetragonops. Dr. Sclater has lately given a figure of 

 this bird in The Ibis, vol. iii., p. 182. 



