86 
THE UMBRELLA-BIRD. 
siderable distance, and catching it as it falls ; but in no science have 
credulity and exaggeration more signally prevailed than in Natural 
History. All they really do is to throw back the head, and allow the 
fruit to fall down the throat ; a custom originated by the length of the 
bill and the stiffness of the tongue. While they are feeding, they 
assiduously maintain a hoarse chatter; and at intervals they join their 
sentry in a screaming concert, which can be heard a mile off. Their 
hunger satisfied, they lumber away into the deeper shades of the forest, 
and give themselves up to a tranquil siesta. Do they dream ; and of 
what are their dreams made up ? Of visions of the enchanted forest, 
perhaps, in which their little lives are spent ; only of that forest freed 
from the presence of their enemies, and basking in a perpetual sunshine. 
When tamed, toucans, according to Mr. Edwards, are familiar and 
playful birds, to whom you may teach as many tricks as to a parrot, 
except that they can never be made to talk. When turning about on 
their perch, they effect their object by one sudden jump. In roosting, 
they have a habit — -birds, by the way, are the very creatures of habit — 
of elevating their tails over their backs. Their appetite is by no means 
fastidious, but they have a special fancy for meat. 
The Bird World has its curiosities, and among them is the umbrella- 
bird, which is, like the toucan, a denizen of the Amazonian forest ; at 
least of those portions of it which cover the swampy islands of the great 
rivers. In size and even in colour he is like a raven ; but his feathers 
acquire a peculiar aspect from their being tipped along the edge or 
margin with a different shade of glossy blue. In his structure, also, 
especially in his feet and bill, he bears kinship to the crows. But he 
is distinguished from them, and from all other birds, by his peculiar 
crest. This is composed of feathers upwards of two inches in length, 
very closely set, and with hairy plumes curving over at the end. 
These, according to Wallace, who appears to have seen several indi- 
viduals of the genus, and to have investigated their ways and means, 
can be laid back so as to be hardly visible, or else erected and 
expanded on every side until they form a hemi-spherical, or rather 
a hemi-ellipsoidal dome, covering the head completely, and reaching 
