Chap. V. LONG BILLS OF TOUCANS. 339 
• 
the banks of rivers to feed on fish, and these accounts 
also encouraged the erroneous views of the habits of 
the birds, which, for a long time, prevailed. Toucans, 
however, are now well known to be eminently arboreal 
birds, and to belong to a group (including trogons, par- 
rots, and 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. Pro- 
fessor Owen found, on dissection, that the gizzard in 
Toucans is not so well adapted for the trituration of 
food as it is in other vegetable feeders, and concluded, 
therefore, as Broderip had observed the habit of chew- 
ing 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 con- 
* Capitoninse, G. R. Gray. 
z 2 
