a Pail' of Tame Ground-Hornhills. 93 



chamseleon — will condescend to. As an instance of their 

 minuteness I will mention that 1 saw Biddy the other day 

 catch a large Acridmm Ihieatum, Stoll, crush it well, break 

 off and drop each hind-leg, and swallow the insect. I 

 thought she would now pass on ; but no, she picked up each 

 hiud-Ieg in turn, crushed the hard chitin that covered the 

 femur, and swallowed the leg ! Each leo- was larger than 

 some whole insects I have seen them ca})ture, but contained, 

 for so large a bird, almost nothing in the way of food. But 

 this is nothing : for what can you say of a bird that will 

 swallow bits of grainless mealie-cob, chips of wood and bits 

 of bark, on the off-chance, perhaps, that they may contain 

 something in the way of nourishment ? Their rule has 

 always seemed to me to be : " When hungry examine and 

 break open everytldng, and when in doubt swallow." There 

 is method in this apparent maduess, and I have no doubt 

 that it is this mania for tasting everything that has made 

 them so sharp as they are in detecting, for instance, 

 the presence of larvse in rough lumps of earth or dung. 



'' Aug. 31s/, 191.1. — Early this morning the two Hornbills 

 were as usual attending the workmen, and I noticed Pat 

 pick up three or four chips of wood, try each carefully and 

 throw it away. As he was trying one of them I called the 

 attention of Makobana, an old and observant native, to it. 

 ' Yes,' he said, 'and he'll eat it too. Every early morning, 

 when they are still hungry, we see them trying pieces of 

 earth, bark, sticks and leaves, and sometimes swallowing 

 them.' In this case Pat did not carry out Makobana's pre- 

 diction, but that the latter was correct in his general state- 

 ment is shown by an examination of a number of their 

 pellets. Pieces of wood, bark, string, &c. are not in- 

 frequently present.'-' 



Rubber coagulating in a basin, soap, a piece of roughly 

 twisted native cord, a small piece of crumpled-up paper, the 

 stone of a mango, a large withered-looking rose-hip, a piece 

 of onion, leaves, straws, sticks, stones, earth, and bits of 

 dung arc amongst the very many things I have seen these 

 birds try. Such incidents have seemed to me to be in line 



