178 Lieut.-Col. Tickell on the Hornbills 



bird utter more than a little murmuring grunt. Its capacity of 

 swallowing is prodigious : a whole plantain can be gulped down 

 without an effort. In picking fruit off a tree^ it tosses it up into 

 the air, and lets it fall down the throat. It eats lizards readily, 

 not only from the hand, but will search for and seize them. 

 The unfledged or half-fledged nestling is constantly uttering a 

 feeble croak, alternating with a piping, whistling noise. A re- 

 markable trait I observed in one or two of the birds in my pos- 

 session was their fondness for rain. They would remain for 

 hours exposed to the heaviest shower, and sit perfectly saturated, 

 with the water trickling from the end of the beak in a ridiculous 

 manner. 



In describing the singular mode of incubation of this bird, I 

 cannot do better than transcribe the account written by myself 

 at the time and place of observation : — 



" Kylk, on the Houngthrau River, February 16, 1855. — On my 

 way back to Moulmein from Mooleyit (a celebrated peak in the 

 Tenasserim range), when halting at Kyik, I heard by the merest 

 chance from the Karen villagers that a large Hornbill was sit- 

 ting on its nest in a tree close to the village, and that for several 

 years past the same pair of birds had resorted to that spot for 

 breeding. I lost no time, accordingly, in going to the place 

 next morning, and was shown a hole high up in the trunk of a 

 moderately large straight tree, branchless for about 50 feet from 

 the ground, in which the female, I was told, lay concealed. The 

 hole was covered with a thick layer of mud, all but a small space, 

 through which she could thrust the end of her bill, and so re- 

 ceive food from the male. 



" One of the villagers at length ascended with great labour, 

 by means of bamboo-pegs driven into the trunk, and commenced 

 digging out the clay from the hole. While so employed, the 

 female kept uttering her rattling sonorous cries, and the male 

 remained perched on a neighbouring tree, sometimes flying to 

 and fro and coming close to us. Of him the natives appeared 

 to entertain great dread, saying he was sure to assault them ; and 

 it was with some difficulty I prevented them from shooting him 

 before they continued their attack on the nest. When the hole 

 was enlarged sufficiently, the man who had ascended thrust in 



