HORN-PIE— HUIA 437 



featui'e in Bii'ds) produces a uniformity of expression which makes 

 it impossible to mistake any member of the Family. Hornbills are 

 social birds, keeping in companies, not to say flocks, and living 

 chiefly on fruits and seeds; but the bigger species also capture and 

 devour a large number of snakes, Avhile the smaller are great 

 destroyers of insects. The older writers say that they eat carrion, 

 but further evidence to that effect is required before the statement 

 can be believed. Almost every morsel of food that is picked up is 

 tossed into the air, and then caught in the bill before it is swallowed. 

 They breed in holes of trees, laying large white eggs, and when the 

 hen begins to sit the cock plasters up the entrance with mud or 

 clay, leaving only a small window through which she receives the 

 food he brings her during her voluntary imprisonment. 



This remarkable habit, almost simultaneously noticed by Dr. 

 IVIason in Burma, Tickell in India, and Livingstone in Africa, but 

 since confirmed by other observers, especially Mr. "Wallace ^ in the 

 Malay Archipelago, has been connected by Mr. Bartlett {Froc. Zool. 

 Soc. 1869, p. 142) with a peculiarity as remarkable, which he was 

 the first to notice. This is the fact that Hornbills at intervals of 

 time, whether periodical or irregular is not yet known, cast the 

 epithelial layer of their gizzard, that layer being formed by a 

 secretion derived from the glands of the proventriculus or some 

 other upper part of the alimentary canal. The epithelium is 

 ejected in the form of a sack or bag, the mouth of which is closely 

 folded, and is filled with the fruit that the bird has been eating. 

 The announcement of a circumstance so extraordinary naturally 

 caused some hesitation in its acceptance, but the essential truth of 

 Mr. Bartlett's observations has been abundantly confirmed by 

 Professor Flower {to7n. cit. p. 150), and especially by Dr. Murie {op. 

 cif. 1874, p. 420), and what seems now to be most wanted is to 

 know whether these castings are really intended to form the hen- 

 bird's food during her confinement. 



HORN-PIE, a local name for the Lapwing, the first syllable refer- 

 ring to its crest which the bird in fullest vigour sets up on high, and the 

 last to its plumage that on the Aving appears to be black and white. 



HOWLET, a form of Owlet, the diminutive of Owl, which has 

 preserved the prefixed aspirate in some Avay that etymologists find 

 hard to explain. 



HUIA, the Maori name, adopted by the English in New 

 Zealand, of a bird of that country, the only member of its genus, 



1 In his interesting work (i. p. 213), he describes a nestling, of the species 

 above figured, which he obtained as "a most curious object, as large as a pigeon, 

 but without a particle of plumage on any part of it. It was exceedingly plump 

 and soft, and with a semi-transparent skin, so that it looked more like a bag of 

 jelly, with head and feet stuck on, than like a real bird." 



