THE HOME OF THE HORNBILL 



Buceros and its allies lay white eggs and deposit them in 

 a hole in a tree. It has been pointed out that birds 

 that lay white eggs generally deposit them in a situation 

 remote from the light. But this is by no means univer- 

 sally true. Some exceptions referred to in the present 

 book are certain cuckoos and the podargus ; there are 

 others. Still, the hornbills conform to this partial 

 generalization. When the time has arrived for egg- 

 laying and incubation,. the male bird carefully plasters 

 up his wife within her dwelling and takes upon himself 

 the care of feeding her. He remarks, in effect, that she 

 must attend to her family and not gad about ; but at 

 the same time does not spare himself, for males in the 

 breeding season are frequently in a miserable physical 

 condition. They are merely, as it has been expressed, 

 a bag of rattling bones. On the other hand, the newly 

 hatched young are little lumps of fat and jelly, feather- 

 less, and impotent to help themselves. This careful 

 guarding of the family may be a defence against the 

 prowling and marauding cat, as well as other carnivores 

 and snakes. It is certain that the visitor will find 

 several hornbills at the Zoo. There are in Nature more 

 than sixty species at present known. 



THE " MORE-PORK," CUVIER'S PODARGUS 



Aristophanes made birds talk, and so too did Chaucer. 

 This practice is continued by those who in modern times 

 have invented pseudo-vernacular names for birds based 

 upon their supposed utterances. Some of the remarks 

 thus put into the mouths of the feathered creation have 

 a point, others have not. As an instance of the latter is 

 a weird-looking bird of which there have been several 

 examples at the Zoo, the last but one of which was 

 harboured in the insect house. This bird, Podargus 

 cuvieri, is one of the churn owls or goatsuckers, and is a 



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