Eccentricities of the Animal Creation.

by John Timbs

THE Toucans, a family of climbing-birds of tropical America, appear to have been known in Europe by the length and great size of their bills, long before the birds themselves found their way to England. Belon, in 1555, described the bill of one of the family as half a foot long, large as a child's arm, pointed, and black at the tip, white elsewhere, notched on the edges, hollow within, and so finely delicate as to be transparent and thin as parchment; and its beauty caused it to be kept in the cabinets of the curious. For more than a century after Belon's work, the birds themselves had not been seen in England; for, in the Museum Tradescantianum, the standard collection of the time, and which, from the list of contributors, appears to have been the great receptacle for all curiosities, we read of an "Azacari (or Toucan) of Brazil; has his beak four inches long, almost two thick, like a Turk's sword" (A.D. 1656). From this description Tradescant knew the nature of the bird, if he had not seen it.

Mr. Swainson states, that the enormous bills give to these birds a most singular and uncouth appearance. Their feet are formed like those of the parrot, more for grasping than climbing; and as they live among trees, and proceed by hopping from branch to branch, their grasping feature is particularly adapted for such habits. They live retired in the deep forests, mostly in small companies. Their flight is strait and laborious, but not graceful; while their movements, as they glide rather than hop from branch to branch, are elegant.

Mr. Gould, in his grand Monograph of the Toucans, or Ramphastidæ, remarks, that it was only within a few years of the time of Linnæus that actual specimens of the Toucan had been received in Europe. The beaks, however, of these birds, regarded as curiosities, had occasionally found their way to our shores, and had occasioned some curious conjectures. The earliest shape resembled a Turkish scimitar.

The Toucans (a word derived from their Brazilian name, Taca, Tucà) received from Linnæus the title of Ramphastos, in allusion to the great volume of the beak (Ραμφος), a family (Ramphastidæ). In some respects, indeed, they resemble the Hornbills in the development of the beak. The Toucans may be said to represent in America the Hornbills in India and Africa. Large as is the beak of the Toucan compared with the size of the body, it is in reality very light. Its outer sheathing is somewhat elastic, very thin, smooth, and semi-transparent; and the interior consists of a maze of delicate cells, throughout which the olfactory nerves are multitudinously distributed. The nostrils are basal, the edges of each mandible are serrated, and the colouring of the whole beak is bright, rich, and often relieved by contrasted markings. But these tints begin to fade after death, and become ultimately dissipated. The eyes are surrounded by a considerable space of naked skin, often very richly tinted. The tongue is very long, slender, horizontally flattened, pointed, and, except at its base, horny; it is fringed or feathered along each side. The wings are short, concave, and comparatively feeble.

The tail is variable, equal and squared; it is remarkable for the facility with which it can be retroverted or turned up, so as to lie upon the back. This peculiarity results from a modification of structure in the caudal vertebræ, which enables the tail to turn with a jerk by the action of certain muscles, as if it were fixed on a hinge put into action by means of a spring. When the retroversion is accomplished, the muscles which caused it become passive, and offer no resistance to their antagonists, which restore the tail to its ordinary direction. When they sleep they puff out their plumage, they retrovert the tail over the back, draw the head between the shoulders; the bill begins to turn over the right shoulder, and becomes at last buried in the plumage of the back; at the same time the pinions of the wings droop, and conceal the feet. The bird now resembles an oval ball of puffed-up feathers, and is well protected against the cold.

Toucans utter, from time to time, harsh, clattering, and discordant cries. "Some," says Mr. Gould, "frequent the humid woods of the temperate regions, while others resort to comparatively colder districts, and dwell at an elevation of from six to ten thousand feet. Those inhabiting the lofty regions are generically different from those residing in the low lands, and are clothed in a more thick and sombre-coloured plumage. All the members of the Hill-Toucans are distinguished by their bills being strong, heavy, and hard, when compared with those of the true Toucans and Araçaris, all of which have their bills of a more delicate structure, and in several species so thin and elastic on the sides as to be compressible between the fingers." Their food in a state of nature consists of fruit, eggs, and nestling birds; to which, in domestication, are added small birds, mice, caterpillars, and raw flesh. They incubate in the hollows of gigantic trees.

Faber was told by Fryer, Alaysa, and other Spaniards who had lived long in America, and also by the Indians, that the Toucan even hews out holes in trees, in which to nidify; and Oviedo adds, that it is from this habit of chipping the trees that the bird is called by the Spaniards Carpintero, and by the Brazilians Tacataca, in imitation, apparently, of the sound it thus makes.

The larger feed upon bananas and other succulent plants; the smaller upon the smaller fruits and berries. Prince Maximilian de Wied states, that in Brazil he found only the remains of fruits in their stomachs, and adds, that they make sad havoc among plantations of fruit-trees. He was informed, however, that they steal and eat birds, but never himself saw them in the act. They abound in the vast forests, and are killed in great number in the cooler season in the year for the purposes of the table. In their manners the Toucans resemble the Crow tribe, and especially the Magpies: like them, they are very troublesome to the birds of prey, particularly to the Owls, which they surround, making a great noise, all the while jerking their tails upwards and downwards. Their feathers, especially from their yellow breasts, are used by the Indians for personal decoration.

Azara states that they attack even the solid nests of the white ants, when the clay of which their nests are formed becomes moistened with the rain; they break them up with their beaks, so as to obtain the young ants and their eggs; and during the breeding season the Toucan feeds upon nothing else; during the rest of the year he subsists upon fruit, insects, and the buds of trees.