PREFACE. 
the publication of the present Work. To Richard Owen, Esq., Assistant Curator of the Museum 
of the Royal College of Surgeons, I am indebted for the elaborate “Observations on the 
Anatomy of the Toucan” given at the close of the Work, being the result of investigations 
instituted by himself expressly for this Monograph. From E. T. Bennett, Esq., Secretary of 
the Zoological Society, N. A. Vigors, Esq., M.P., and W. Swainson, Esq., I have received 
much valuable information. 
To Lord Stanley, whose rich collection has been at all times most liberally opened to 
facilitate my inquiries, I am indebted for the use of the originals of three of the figures here 
delineated. To Professor Lichtenstein I have to express my sincere obligations for permission 
to avail myself of the treasures contained in the Royal Museum of Berlin, which has been so 
much enriched by his own personal exertions, and which afforded me two species of this family 
with which I was previously unacquainted. The fine collection in the National Museum of 
Paris was made available to me by M. Geoffrey St. Hilaire and his talented son M. Isidore 
St. Hilaire, from both of which scientific gentlemen I received much pohteness and attention. 
I have not yet had an opportunity of inspecting the Leyden collection, for which purpose I 
expressly visited that city, the stores which are there being, it is to be regretted, so secured as 
not to be accessible ; but M. Temminck informed me that they contained no species of this 
family unknown to the British and continental museums. 
