Tucana
"den Indiaenschen Exster, op Indies Lang ghenaemt" (the Indian Magpie, named "Lang" in the Indies) was the original Dutch name of the constellation of the bird that is now called "Toucan" (Tucana, Tuc).
Invention & Transformation
The southern star catalog by de Houtman and Keyser was published by de Houtman in 1603 as an appendix to a dictionary of the Malaysian (and other) language(s). This star catalog was written in Dutch and never translated.
Before the publication of the star catalog, de Houtman has shared his data with Plancius who had actually commissioned this work. Even in the 1590s Plancius had worked with this material and his celestial globe of 1598 already displayed paintings of the newly invented constellations in the south. This globe and/or its copies served as source for Bayer's Uranometria (1603). Bayer's map of the south pole only displays images without labels. The constellation of this bird seems to be nameless but has an extraordinarily long beak. The additional phrase in de Houtman's catalog, mentioning that the bird was named "Lang" is interpreted to be the cause for this depiction, implying that "Lang" means "long" and refers to the beak.
It is well possible that images like this lead to the new interpretation of the constellation as a Toucan, although de Houtman certainly did not describe a toucan but an hornbill. Toucans are not home to the East Indies and Malaysia.
Ridpath suggests that the inventor of this constellation was actually Pieter Keyser who had not survived the expedition to the East Indies but had previously visited South America.
References
- Ian Ridpath, Star Tales. website
- de Houtman (1603) Star Catalogue concerning the Indian Magpie
