On the Amazons,
where these birds are very common, no one pretends ever to have
seen a Toucan walking on the ground in its natural state, much
less acting the part of a swimming or wading bird. Professor Owen
found, on dissection, that the gizzard in Toucans is not so well
adapted for the trituration of food as it is in other vegetable
feeders, and concluded, therefore, as Broderip had observed the
habit of chewing the cud in a tame bird, that the great toothed
bill was useful in holding and remasticating the food. The bill
can scarcely be said to be a very good contrivance for seizing
and crushing small birds, or taking them from their nests in
crevices of trees, habits which have been imputed to Toucans by
some writers. 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.
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