iHiyiTUOLOOY. 351 



IIVCROCISSA AI-BinOSTUIS, Sliaw. Toutig-ngoo. 



Ouk-cliiu. 



Tliis species is said (I.e.) to feed, when tlie cliiiuco olt'ers, on fish, and to l>e so 

 intent on its prey, that it may he then sometimes Ivilled with a stiek. It is proljahlu 

 tliat all species of the tamily piey, when tliey can, on any small mammal, hird or tish 

 they can surprise. 



Anorhinus TreKKi.Ll, lilylh. Martalmii Hills ii]i to 1000. 



A. GALERlTUS, Tcm. Malewon and Baukasun. 



A very shy and strictly arhoreal species. 



AcEKOS TLICATUS, Latham. Arakau. Tenasserim. 



Young-yen-net. 



A. sunuTJKicoLLis, Blyth. Arakan. Toung-ngoo. Tenasserim. 



A. Xarkoxdaju, Hume (S.F. i. p. 411). Narkondam Island. 



The female is an exact miniature of the last, and weighs one pound only, or 

 a thii-d of the otluT. The male again is a miniature of the male of rufieoUis from 

 Kew Guinea. 



A. NiTALKNsis, Hodg. Kachar. Tenasserim. 



A. VNDULATus, 8haw. Tenasserim south of Amherst. 



Bkrenicounis comatus, RaiH. IS. Tenasserim. Bankasun. Malacca. 



In addition to fruit, these birds cat lizards and small birds. This species has 

 a remarkably soft flight, flapping its wings rapidly but noiselessly, and without 

 the intermediate sailing periods so eliaraoteristio of the flight of llydrucissa and 

 Bichoceros (Davison). 



IlniNoPLAX VIGIL, Forst. Malewon and Bankasun. 



The solid-billed hombill derives its specific name from its extreme wariness, which 

 renders it next to impossible to shoot one without days and days of laborious work. 

 This is no doubt produced by the ardour with which they are pursued and harassed 

 by the natives, who carve their heads into obscene love-charms, which sell for 50 

 rupees apiece among the superstitious people (Davison, S.F. vi. p. 115). 



The Honibills are striking objects in a Burmese forest, and the cry and noise 

 made by the flight of l>. cavatus is something alarming, and must be heard to be fully 

 realized. This species lays a single egg, the smaller species laying three brownish 

 cream-coloured eggs without gloss. When a female hornbill has excavated a hole in 

 a tree, she is confined to her nest by the male plastering np the orifice with clay and 

 his own dung, and so preventing her egress till the young are hatched. While so 

 confined, the female is assiduously fed by the male with fruit, which the female is 

 said to refuse unless fresh and choice. A singular habit is possessed by some hoi-nbills 

 of voiding, in the form of a sac, the lining membrane of their stomachs, which in a 

 short time would seem to be reproduced without ill eflects to the bird. 



There are two papers in the Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., wliich exhaustively treat of 

 this curious phenomenon. The first is by Mr. A. D. liartlett, P./.S. 18G9, p. 142; 

 the other by Dr. Murie, P.Z.S. 1874, p. 420. Mr. Bartlett from the first advocated 

 the correct view, that this casting up the lining membrane of the gizzard was not the 

 result of diseased action, but a curious provision for more readily feeding, by means of 

 such a ' bolus ' or ' capsule,' the imprisoned female during the pei'iod of incubation. 

 For the fact of this imprisonment, and the assiduous attention of the male hird, he 

 quotes both Tickell, Wallace, and Dr. Mason, and correctly remarks that the latter 

 observer could of course not distinguish at a distance between the ' sac,' with its con- 

 tents, which the male puts into the mouth of the female, and a 'fg ' or fruit, as Mason 

 presumed it to be. 



Dr. Livingstone also noted the same act with respect to the African Hornbills, and 

 added the remarkable discovery, that the bird sometimes becomes so emaciated by his 

 attendance on the im])risoned female as to pay the forfeit of his industiy with his life. 

 Livingstone says, "During all this time, which is stated to be two or three months, 



