30 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I3I 



water and my captives do not seem to know what it is. Apparently 

 they get enough water from fruit. 



FRUITS IDENTIFIED FROM SEEDS, STONES, AND PIPS RECOVERED FROM 

 FECES BELOW HORNEILL NESTS 



Canarium schweinfurthii Engl. Aniiaris toxicaria (Pers.) Lesch. 



Pycnanthus angolensis (y\[tbfi.) 'E-x.dX. Chlorophora excelsa (Wehv.) Benth. 



Pseudospondias microcarpa (A. Rich.) Eugenia jatnbolana Lam. 



Engl. Dracaena steudneri Engl. 



Maesopsis eminii Engl. Ficus nalalcnsis ITochst. 



Animal food. — Bannerman (1953), writing of Bycanistes subcylin- 

 dricus, states that "this bird lives entirely upon fruit, as indeed do 

 most of the large hornbills." During initial observations I had no 

 reason to doubt this statement. By closer watching, however, I found 

 that hornbills take a wide variety of animal prey. On December 6 

 a male went from one low perch to another among our garden trees, 

 sometimes only 7 feet from the ground. Five minutes later I saw him 

 fly up from the foot of a jacaranda with a 5-inch lizard squirming in 

 his bill. He flew to a perch over a native shamba. Here he tossed 

 the lizard about in his bill for some time, holding it by the tip of the 

 tail, then chewed along until he reached the head. Finally the hornbill 

 lost hold and the lizard fell. In a feat of acrobatics, the hornbill fell 

 down after his prey, disappearing from sight in the vegetation. Fif- 

 teen minutes later the bird was back in our garden. A completely 

 limp lizard hung from his bill as he flew over the hill in what I 

 suspected was the direction of his nest. On January 31 another male 

 hornbill was hunting in our garden. He hopped onto a perch, looked 

 around slowly in all directions, then hopped to another perch and did 

 the same. After some minutes he flew to a thick bushy tree, where 

 he scrutinized the foliage carefully, then hopped directly to the end 

 of a branch where a mouse bird had its nest. The hornbill picked up 

 a small egg with his bill tip, sent it flying back into his gullet with a 

 toss of his head, then did the same with a second egg. To finish off, 

 he seized some nest material and dropped it. What followed was an 

 example of the delicate control casqued hornbills have with their bills. 

 The male coughed up one egg from his gullet and held it again in his 

 bill tip. By this time his mate had arrived in a tree across the lawn. 

 He flew over to her, still holding the egg, and settling beside her, 

 presented her with the egg ; then heaved and presented her with the 

 other, both intact. She swallowed both. On February 15 I watched 

 two male hornbills hunting in our garden. A double-toothed barbet 

 {Lyhiiis bidentatus) was excavating in a tree when the hornbills flew 



