§6 A V O Y A G E T O Book L 



-nothing remarkable excel in the fweetnefs of their 

 notes. This is particularly evident in the gnacamayo, 

 the beauty and luftre of vvhofe colours are abfolutely 

 inimitable by painting ; and yet there is not a more 

 (hrill and difagreeable found than the noife it makes : 

 this is in a great meafure common to all other birds, 

 whofe bills are hard and crooked, and their tongue 

 thicker than ufual, as the parrots, the cotorras, and 

 the periquitos. All thefe birds fly in troops, fo that 

 often the air founds with their cries, 



But of all the fingularitics among the feathered 

 race, nothing is more remarkable than the bill of the 

 tulcan, or preacher : This bird is about the>Jize of a 

 common pigeon, but its legs much larger its tail is 

 fhort, and its plumage of a dark colour, but fpotted 

 with blue, purple, yellow, and other colours which 

 have a beautiful effedt on the dark ground. Its head 

 is beyond all proportion to its body, but otherwife he 

 would not be able to fupport his bill, which, from the 

 root to the point, is at leafl fix or eight inches, and the 

 upper mandible has, at its root, a bafe of at leaft an 

 inch and a half, of a triangular figure, whofe apex is 

 6t the point of the bill. The two lateral fuperficies 

 form a kind of elevation on the upper part and the 

 third receives the lower mandible, which clofes with 

 the upper through the whole length ; fo that the two 

 parts are every where perfedtly equal, and from their 

 root narrows infenfibly, till near the top, where it fud - 

 disnly becomes incurvated, and terminates in a flrong 

 and lliarp point. The tongue is formed like a fea- 

 ther, and of a deep red colour, like the whole infide 

 of its mouth. The bill is variegated with all thofe 

 bright colours, which adorn the plumage of other 

 birds. At the bafe, and alfo at the convexity, it i^ 

 generally of a light yellow, forming a kind of ribband 

 half an inch in breadth. The reft is of a fine deep 

 purple, except two ftreaks near the root, of a xic\\ 

 icarl^t, ^t an inch diftaiu from e^ch other, The in- 

 ward 



