PDF - Wallace Online

298 TROPICAL NATUREthan are exhibited in their beautifully-coloured plates, of theendless ways in which the most glaring and inharmoniouscolours are often combined in natural objects with a generallypleasingWe result.will next group together three families which, althoughquite distinct, may be said to represent each other in theirrespective countries, the toucans of America, the plantaineatersof Africa, and the hornbills of the East, all beinglarge and remarkable birds, and certain to attract the traveller'sattention. The toucans are the most beautiful onaccount of their large and richly-coloured bills, their delicatebreast-plumage, and the varied bands of colour with whichthey are often adorned. Though feeding chiefly on fruits,they also devour birds' eggs and young birds and; they areremarkable for the strange habit of sleeping with the tail laidflatupon their backs, in what seems a most unnatural andinconvenient position. What can be the use of their enormousbills has been a great puzzle to naturalists, the onlytolerably satisfactory solution yet arrived at being that suggestedby Mr. Bates, that it simply enables them to reachfruit at the ends of slender twigs which, owing to their weightand clumsiness, they would otherwise be unable to obtain.At first sight it appears very improbable that so large andremarkable an organ should have been developed for such apurpose; but we have only to suppose that the originaltoucans had rather large and thick bills, not unlike those ofthe barbets (to which group they are undoubtedly allied), andthat as they increased in size and required more food, onlythose could obtain a sufficiency whose unusually large beaksenabled them to reach farthest. So large and broad a bill asthey now possess would not be required; but the developmentof the bill naturally went on as it had begun, and, sothat it was light and handy, the large size was no disadvantageif length was obtained. The plantain-eaters of Africa are lessremarkable birds, though adorned with rich colours andelegant crests. The hornbills, though less beautiful than thetoucans, are more curious, from the strange forms of theirhuge bills, which are often adorned with ridges, knobs, orrecurved horns. They are bulky and heavy birds, and duringflight beat the air with prodigious force, producing a rushing