TOUCANS. 
167 
large as the body itself, but is internally cellular, so tliat it 
is very light ; the edges are toothed, and both the mandibles 
are arched towards the tip ; the tongue is long and narrow, 
and has the edges at the end barbed like a feather. 
No birds are more admirably suited for their mode of life 
than the toucans, nor are any arrayed in more striking 
clothing. Even a close inspection of the black, yellow, red, 
and green plumage of the various species is singularly agree- 
able : the colours contrast well. While the plumage, how- 
ever^" gorgeous, of smaller birds is all but invisible at a dis- 
tance, the toucan, on the topmost branch of a towering 
mora in the woods of Demerara, strikes the eye, from the 
massy arrangement of the colour ; and though his attractive 
dress has caused the gun of the fowler to be levelled at him, 
such is the height of the tree, on a dead branch of which 
he has perched as his favourite resort,^^ that the shot has 
either not reached him, or struck him so faintly as only to 
discompose his sedateness"^. 
Mr. Waterton found in Demerara six species of Ramphas- 
tidce, to three of which, being diminutive, he applies the 
name Toucanet. According to his observation, these birds 
feed entirely on the fruits of the forest, and never kill the 
* See Waterton's * Wanderiags in South America/ p. 5. 
