Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 14, 2025
It is supposed to represent the toucan a tropical bird, and one not known to exist anywhere within the limits of the United States. If we are not mistaken in supposing it to represent this bird, the remarks made respecting the sculptures of the manitus will here apply with double force. This sculpture is fortunately easy of identification.
"It must have been two hours, and I was beginning to feel very much cramped when I heard a whirring of great wings, and then the toucan alighted on the ground beside me. He had evidently spied the basket and was curious to know what it was. He came over and then I could feel him pecking at the peaches through the woven covering.
In this curious way came their zygodactylous bird. The wood-cut is a poor one, and exhibits certain important changes, which, on the assumption that the pipe is at all well illustrated by the cast in the Smithsonian, reflects more credit on the artist's knowledge of what a toucan ought to look like than on his fidelity as an exact copyist.
The toucan of South America also forms her nest in the cavity of a tree, and, like the hornbill, plasters up the aperture with mud. The hornbill's beak, added Captain Redwood, is slightly curved, sharp-pointed, and about two inches long.
Armed with a stick, he had chased the agoutis; for want of agoutis, he had eaten rats. By night, he silently climbed the trees to surprise the female of the toucan or blackbird, which he pitilessly stifled over their young brood. Meanwhile, at the noise he made among the branches, this winged prey almost always escaped him.
This cut corresponds with the cast in the Smithsonian collection, in having the normal number of toes, four three in front and one behind. This departure from the arrangement common to the toucan family, which is zygodactylous, seems to have escaped Stevens's attention.
Were a specimen of each species of the toucan presented to you, you would pronounce the bill of the bouradi the most rich and beautiful; on the ridge of the upper mandible a broad stripe of most lovely yellow extends from the head to the point; a stripe of the same breadth, though somewhat deeper yellow, falls from it at right angles next the head down to the edge of the mandible; then follows a black stripe, half as broad, falling at right angles from the ridge, and running narrower along the edge to within half an inch of the point.
It would be surprising, therefore, if an animal so striking, and one that has figured so largely in Indian totemism and folk-lore, should not have received attention at the hands of the Mound-Builders. Nothing resembling the toucan, as has been seen, has been found in the mounds; but, as stated, this bird is found in Southern Mexico.
As in the Cass of the manatee, it has been thought well to introduce a correct drawing of a toucan in order to afford opportunity for comparison of this very striking bird with its supposed representations from the mounds. For this purpose the most northern representative of the family has been selected as the one nearest the home of the Mound-Builders.
It makes itself master of the house, steals whatever it can come at, and loves to bathe often and fish on the banks of the river. The toucan we had bought was very young; yet it took delight, during the whole voyage, in teasing the cusicusis, or nocturnal monkeys, which are melancholy and irritable.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking