TOUCANS AND HORNBILLS 
prominent bills like the hornbills of India and Africa ; 
but their feet have the toes in twos, one pair behind and 
one in front; they are like the cuckoos and some other 
arboreal birds, “ zygodactyle.” The hornbills have a 
foot which is efficient for grasping purposes, but three 
toes closely applied look forwards and only one back- 
ward. Still, the two families of birds are not very 
remote, and the one takes the place of the other in 
forests of the tropics of Newand Old Worlds. You can 
tell a hornbill, as its very name denotes, by its huge 
bil. This would seem to necessitate an unusually 
strong head to sustain it. Asa matter of fact, additional 
resistant power is arrived at in these birds by a complete 
fusion between the two first vertebrae of the neck, 
which are in nearly all other birds separate and move- 
able, the one upon the other. Besides, the conviction 
-of impossible top-heaviness forced upon the uninformed 
mind by the look of a hornbill is dissipated when the 
dried skull of one of these birds is inspected. It is then 
seen to be formed of the most delicate bony substance, 
arranged in a loose network of bony thread. To watch 
a hornbill hop lightly from bough to bough finally sets 
the mind at rest, and shows that Nature here, as else- 
where, has known what she was about in framing the 
hornbill. The bizarre suggestion of the bill, with its 
superincumbent casque (not present, however, in all 
hornbills), is not borne out by an acquaintance with 
the way of life of the bird. It lives largely upon fruits, 
which a long bill enables it to wrench off from their 
native branches, the leverage being thereby increased. 
Large though these birds are, they are exceedingly 
light, and for reasons revealed to the anatomist. When 
a hornbill is dissected, it is only necessary to remove 
the skin from the leg, when all the muscles, nerves, and 
vessels stand out as if separated by painstaking use of 
the scalpel. The reason for this is that the flesh is dry, 
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