on the Brom- Vogel.



12 3



and butter and cakes. These lie skillfully caught when thrown

to him. He would also, if no one else was by, carry off the food

from the table, as well as the spoons which he delighted to hide

away like a Jackdaw.


Unlike other Hornbills, the Brom-vogel walks and does not

hop. He can get over the ground at a good pace and I often had

a good deal of difficulty in catching him if he strayed away, as

he was sometimes apt to do. When Unshed in a wild state, they

fly, though not for very far, and I had to keep one of “ Brom’s”

wings cut or he would have escaped altogether. At night they

roost in trees and my bird was always anxious to do so, but I

usually shut him up in a shed for safety sake.


The call is a kind of “boom-boom” constantly repeated

until it becomes quite wearisome. Though pronounced low it

can be heard at a great distance. When “booming” the red

pouch was usually observed to be distended, but this was not

invariably the case.


I kept my bird about two years, if I remember rightly;

foolishly enough I allowed him to roost in a tree in the garden

for several nights during the rainy season, and, unfortunately, he

caught a chill and succumbed.


Our knowledge of the nesting habits of the Ground

Hornbill is still very imperfect and uncertain. Some observers

say that it builds a nest in the flat crown of a tree when the

trunk has decayed away; others say that it nests in a hole in a

tree trunk, but it would certainly have to be a very large hole.


There was an egg in the South African Museum taken

by Col. Bowker at Old Morley, a Mission Station in Tembuland,

Cape Colony. It was an elongate oval and dirty white and

measured 2 95 by rSo.


The bird is known as “Turkey Buzzard ” by the English

Colonists and “Brom-Vogel” among the Dutch, and is spiead

all over the eastern half of Cape Colony, Natal and the lower

districts of the Transvaal and Rhodesia, extending as far north

as Angola, Nigeria and German East Africa. Both it and the

Abyssinian species can often be seen in the Zoological Gardens.



