a Fair of Tame Groumi-lloriihills. 99 



selves, and only hung about, getting hungry and getting into 

 mischief. Tainted rats were usually rejected. 



Mr. Ballantyne's birds both uttered the " whining " note 

 incessantly, and showed the entiiusiasin I have already 

 referred to for glittering objects. It Wiis vastly more dilticult 

 to make them relinquish these than any dull, plain object. 

 He, too, saw them seize plants in their bills and dance round 

 and round them. They twisted off the stems of a number of 

 his young tre«s in this way. AVitli regard to the eating 

 of kittens^ he stated that three litters, totalling thirteen, at 

 one time disappeared. He hiinself saw the Hornbills swallow 

 one of the kittens, and his boys reported seeing them eat 

 others. The kittens were already just old enough to be 

 moving about the place unattended by their mothers when 

 the disappearances began. Mr. Ballantyne also mentioned 

 a point I had forgotten to — namely, their apparent courting. 

 As he puts it : " They squat down on the ground together, 

 hold each other's bills and go through ceremonial move- 

 ments." His birds started when they must have been about 

 two years old. Pat and Biddy were at it last season if not 

 before, and I have seen them doing it again lately (early 

 June 1913), but so far no definite breeding operations seem 

 to have been attempted. 



Perhaps the most interesting points concerned the age of 

 his Hornbills when they came to him. In the first place one 

 of them seemed to be very much older than the other. This, 

 with the probably parallel case of Pat and F)iddy, suggests 

 that all the eggs are not necessarily laid at once. Secondly, 

 neither bird, he considered, could have been very much less 

 than six months old. The native who captured them had, as 

 usual, removed most of the quills, but there could be no 

 doubt that the birds had already been capable of flying and 

 of fending for themselves for quite a long period. It is 

 interesting here to add the fact that a native in my employ 

 found me this season a Ground-lIornbilPs nest containino- 

 one very bighly addled egg (it exploded almost at once), and 

 stated that on his going u)) to the hole two birds flew out — 



