90 Mr. (\ F. M. Swynnerton on 



small portion of the ejecta that I was ahle to rescue. It 

 included (apart from the cutworms, which T left to the hirds) 

 the remnants of a suiiil, of two weevils and another beetle 

 (not yet identified), and of seven species of orasshoppers, 

 includino- a variety of Catantops siiIj>J>ureus, Walk., also a 

 coffee-bean, a liarieot-bean, a Cape gooseberry, and a small 

 triangular piece of hoof." 



T have on several occasions seen the birds split, by dint 

 of repeated blows, fairly thick and moderately woody stems 

 and extract larva? from their interior. I have not actually 

 seen them try to extract Antlwres from cofFee-stems. The 

 latter are presumably too woody, and even were it not so, 

 the Hornbill's method is, I fear, rather too drastic to admit 

 of their employment for the })urpose in coffee-growing 

 districts ! But, in common with my other birds, they have 

 eaten with apparent relish such of the larvse as I have 

 myself extracted and given to them. And they do find and 

 eat the mature beetle. They are also the only one of my 

 birds that seem to sometimes find room for our highly 

 nauseous coffee-bug {Antest'ia varh'(iata) . I have occasionally 

 seen them pick one off the bushes, and on one occasion 

 (April 7th, 1911) Pat ate 193 that I offered him in quick 

 succession, capping them with an Anvmrus allnmarulata, 

 Butler, while Biddy ate all I had left (about 90 or 100). 



Normally they refuse Acrcvina' and Davaiua', as well as 

 such low-grade insects of other orders as the bug just men- 

 tioned, Mylahris, EpilacJma, Lycus, Lentula, Zonoeeros, &c. 

 It is true that when they are hungry they will (very 

 naturally) eat such insects in far larger numbers than will 

 my small birds under the same conditions ; but, apart from 

 this, I have found them fairly discriminating, their actual 

 preferences (which I hope to publish more fully later) differ- 

 ing but little from those of the various other birds that I 

 have tested. An incident worth quoting in the above con- 

 nection is the following: — Pat (on Feb. 19th, 1911) had 

 refused a Zonoeeros elegana^ Thunb., ? , but Biddy was 

 apparently hungry enough to eat it. "Every time Biddy 

 l)icked up the grasshopper he took it from her, erushed it or 



