IG 
EEAXJTirUL BIEDS. 
subsist tlirougliout the greater part of the year chiefly 
upon fruits. But they are also highly carnivorous, 
and attack the smaller birds in their nests, driving 
them away from their eggs, or from their young, which 
they afterwards devour at their leisure. Even the 
eggs and young of the Macaws and other equally 
large birds are stated occasionally to fall victims to 
their propensity for preying on the progeny of their 
neighbours. These delicacies form their principal 
nutriment during the season in which they are to be 
procured ; but when that is passed away, the Toucans 
return to their vegetable diet, and never attempt, it is 
said, to molest the older birds. Their flight is low and 
heavy, and generally iu a straight horizontal line. They 
perch in groups of eight or ten together, on the summits 
of the loftiest trees, and are seen in almost constant 
motion, hopping from branch to branch with the 
greatest quickness. In flying, the point of their beak 
is directed forwards, and this position, together with 
its extreme lightness, prevents it from overbalancing 
them body. Their tongue, from its flexibility, is quite 
useless as a means of guidmg their food to its proper 
destination. It is for this reason that in feeding they 
first seize the morsel, whatever it may be, either with 
the sides or point of the bill, and then jerking it up- 
wards in the air let it fall at once into their widely- 
distended throat. They build their nest in the hollows 
of trees, and lay but two eggs at a time.* 
The predominant hue of the plumage of these birds 
is black on the upper parts, the lower portion being 
varied with either white, yellow, or red. 
* Menagerie of the Zoological Society, Bennet. 
