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Updated: June 11, 2025
One day, whil walking along the principal pathway in the woods near Ega, I saw one of these Toucans seated gravely on a low branch close to the road, and had no difficulty in seizing it with my hand. It turned out to be a runaway pet bird; no one, however, came to own it, although I kept it in my house for several months.
Now Leon had finished his operations on such trees as Guapo had already cut down, and not finding a good seat near, had walked towards the precipice which was farther up the hill, and sat down upon one of the loose rocks at its base. Here he amused himself by watching the parrots and toucans that were fluttering through the trees over his head.
During one of these excursions we had got some considerable distance up the Cachoeira without seeing a sign of any inhabitants, and leaving our boat at anchor, we had landed and spent our day in slaying toucans, parrokeets of all colours, and all the strange birds and beasts peopling the virgin forest, when at sunset we fell upon a cleared path, which led us to a wide glade and then to a village, the existence of which had been hitherto quite unsuspected by us.
There will he also discover the honey-suckers, moths, butterflies, the beetles, and all the other insect brood which he had also vainly looked for before. The fruits are likewise borne aloft, and therefore at the proper time these tree-tops will be the haunt of the monkeys, the parrots, the bats, the toucans, and all frugivorous creation. Of all fruits the durian is the most delicious.
Solitary toucans are sometimes met with, hopping silently up and down the larger boughs, and peering into the crevices of tree trunks. When the gapo is flooded, they fly to the drier ground, assembling in large flocks, when they are easily shot by the hunters. The birds are then very fat, and their flesh sweet and tender. In some species the bill is nearly as large and as long as the body itself.
This superb bill fades in death, and in three or four days' time has quite lost its original colours. Till within these few years no idea of the true colours of the bill could be formed from the stuffed toucans brought to Europe. About eight years ago, while eating a boiled toucan, the thought struck me that the colours in the bill of a preserved specimen might be kept as bright as those in life.
While the cotingas attract your attention by their superior plumage, the singular form of the toucan makes a lasting impression on your memory. There are three species of toucans in Demerara, and three diminutives, which may be called toucanets. The largest of the first species frequents the mangrove trees on the sea-coast.
Over the branches of the trees, whose leaves were as thin as though we had had a six months' drought, the toucans and Martian parrots hung limp and fashionless like gaudy rags, and in the courtyard ground the corn-rats came up from their tunnels in the scorching earth to die, squeaking in scores along under the walls.
The hollow, cellular structure of the interior of the bill, its curved and clumsy shape, and the deficiency of force and precision when it is used to seize objects, suggest a want of fitness, if this be the function of the member. But fruit is undoubtedly the chief food of Toucans, and it is in reference to their mode of obtaining it that the use of their uncouth bills is to be sought.
"No doubt about that," remarked Sumichrast, smiling; "but the point is, why they were made so." "Because their beak, calcined and reduced to powder, is the only efficacious remedy for epilepsy. Toucans are very scarce birds, and if their beaks were no larger than those of other birds of their size, this medicine could never be obtained in sufficient quantities."
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