88 Mr. C. F. M. Swynnerton on 



ascertain their natural jn-eferences, I have wished them to 

 lead as nnartiticial a life as possible. 



They seem, as a rule, to find plenty of food : they always 

 follow the plough for Avhat it may turn up, and when no 

 ploughing is toward, tliey keep most commonly with the 

 working-gang, liaving evidentl}^ learnt that where work is 

 going on food is likely to be turned up. They are (to judge 

 by results) exceedingly close searchers. They walk along in 

 casual fashion, it is true, and without much of tliat air of 

 intentness of peering that so often characterizes, for instance, 

 the search of a White-eye. Yet they seem to miss relatively 

 little. In walking along wnth them myself I have seldom 

 seen their better-hidden prey before they have actually 

 attacked it themselves, and in, I should say, the majority of 

 cases it has been tossed down iheir throats before I have 

 even had time to recognize what it was. Biddy once readily 

 found me my forceps, lost among herbage and already 

 searched for l)y me there in vain ; but I had great dithculty 

 in recovering them from her! Both birds are particularly 

 fond of going off with anything bright or glitteiing, and are 

 at once accused ])y the natives if these mislay their orna- 

 mental snuff-boxes, bottles, beads, knives, &c. They thus, 

 in common with Jackdaws and Bower-birds, demonstrate 

 that it is not only humans that are attracted by bright 

 inanimate objects ! 



They seem to be, above all, ground-searchers, but they 

 certainly take a very great deal from the herbage too, and 

 I have even sometimes seen one or other suddenly turn aside 

 and pick, off a flower on relatively high foliage, in some 

 cases juiii}>ing up to do so, an insect that I have supposed 

 was being passed by unnoticed. They are also great diggers, 

 and fre(]uently go to a depth of seven or eight inchf\s for a 

 return that, in spite of the ra[)idity with which their strong 

 bills perform the excavation, has often seemed io me quite 

 inadequate. On April :50th, 1911, I wrote : "The Hornbills 

 must extract a good deal of their sust(Miance from under the 

 ground or the dehris covering its iunnediate surface. Grass 

 Ivino- on the ground is at once separated out or tui-ned over ; 



