HOENBILLS 105 



to a creamy- or salmon-pink, sparingly spotted with 

 brown, pink or purplish. The photograph depicts a 

 nest on a hillside overlooking the Kowie River at Port 

 Alfred. 



The Square-tail ranges from Pondoland (where it was 

 procured by Sergeant Davies, C.M.E.) to Portuguese 

 East Africa, the Eastern Transvaal and Ehodesia. 



It is a shyer bird than its relative, keeping more to 

 the thicker bush, and is not attracted by grass fires. 



It builds a more solid structure than the Fork-tail, 

 lichen forming the bulk of the material used, but the 

 eggs do not vary to the same extent as those of the afer. 



HORNBILLS. 



Of the family of Hornbills >(Bucerotid&) two genera 

 are forest-loving birds, the first representative being the 

 Trumpeter Hornbill (Bycanistes buccinator). This bird 

 is black with a greenish sheen above ; the rump, upper 

 tail-coverts and lower breast white ; the beak is orna- 

 mented with an enormous casque, the upper edge of which 

 almost reaches to a level with the tip of the beak. 



The Crowned Hornbill (Lophoceros melanoleucus) is the 

 best-known member of the family in the bush districts 

 of the Cape, where it generally assembles into parties of 

 from six to twenty individuals during the winter months, 

 visiting the towns and feeding on late fruit and insects 

 turned up in the cultivation of ground. 



They do an amount of good by feeding upon locusts 

 and caterpillars, but as the}^ do some harm to fruit, espe- 

 cially bananas, we have not included them under the 

 heading of friends of the farmer, although the good they 

 do very probably outweighs the harm. 



