178 Wonders of the Bird World 



brought her home with her young one, which made an 

 extraordinary monotonous noise, and appeared to be con- 

 tinually hungry, though seeming to be well-fed. The 

 nestling afterwards became quite tame, and lived for 

 months, flying about my garden; sometimes taking pos- 

 session of the back of a chair whilst I was at meals, when 

 he would catch pieces of bread thrown to him. He was 

 very partial to butter, and would clear the table of any 

 that was on it, if one left the room. He afterwards became 

 great friends with an Orang-utan (Simia satyrus] which I 

 had tame in the garden, but he had a way of pinching 

 the monkey with his beak which I have no doubt was 

 painful. The Orang, however, would always share his 

 food with the Hornbill, and they never seemed to disagree. 

 When older, the bird used to repeatedly utter the cry, 

 Ku-ku, ku-ku, kua, which is the name given to it by the 

 Dyaks." 



The Hornbills belong, as we have already seen, to the 

 group of Picarian Birds, which not only make no nest, but 

 for the most part excavate a tunnel in the ground, at the 

 end of which their white eggs are deposited, or they place 

 the latter in the hole of a tree. Thus do Parrots, King- 

 fishers, Barbets, and Woodpeckers, together with the other 

 allied forms, but the Hornbills are alone in their curious 

 habit of boxing the hen bird up during the time of incuba- 

 tion. Strangely enough, however, the Hoopoes, which 

 bear no great outward resemblance to the Hornbills, as 

 may be seen by our figure of the Common Hoopoe (Upupa 

 epops) on p. 281, have somewhat the same peculiarity in 

 nesting, viz. that the female seldom leaves the nest, and is 

 supported entirely by the male. Different as the Hoopoes 

 are in looks from the Hornbills, the two families possess 

 several peculiar anatomical features in common. The 

 Common Hoopoe chooses a hole in which to place its 

 young, generally in a tree, but it may be in the fissure of 



