164 



ZOOLOGY. 



[Part II. 



coming into tlie vicinity of the lakes and pasture of the 

 low country, that birds become visible in great quanti- 

 ties. In the close jungle one occasionally hears the call 

 of the copper-smith \ or the strokes of the great orange- 

 coloured woodpecker^ as it beats the decaying trees in 

 search of insects, whilst chnging to the bark with its 

 finely-pointed claws, and leaning for support upon the 

 short stiff feathers of its tail. And on the lofty 

 branches of the higher trees, the hornbill^ (the toucan 

 of the East), with its enormous double casque, sits to 

 watch the motions of the tiny reptiles and smaller bhds 

 on which it preys, tossing them into the au" when seized, 

 and catching them in its gigantic mandibles as they 

 fall.^ The remarkable excrescence on the beak of this 

 extraordinary bird may serve to explain the statement 

 of the Minorite friar Odoric, of Portenau in Friidi, who 

 travelled in Ceylon in the fourteentli century, and 

 brought suspicion on the veracity of his narrative by 

 asserting that he had there seen " birds with two heads'' ^ 

 As we emerge from the deep shade and approach the 



^ The gi-eater red-lieaded Barbet 

 (Megalaima indica, Lath. ; M. Phi- 

 lippensis, var. A. Lath.), the incessant 

 din of whicli resembles the blows of 

 a smith hammering a cauldron. 

 ^ BracliA^ternus aurantius, Linn, 

 ^ Buceros pica, Scoj}. ; B. coro- 

 nata, Bodd. The natives assert that 

 B. pica builds in holes in the trees, 

 and that when incubation has fairly 

 commenced, the female takes her seat 

 on the eggs, and the male closes up 

 the orifice by which she entered, 

 leaving only a small aperture through 

 which he feeds his partner, whilst 

 she successfidly guards their trea- 

 sures from the monkey tribes ; her 

 formidable bill nearlj^ tilling the en- 

 tire entrance. See a paper by Edgar 

 L. Layard, Esq. il/c/r/. Nat. Ilist. 

 March,' 185-3. Dr. Horsfield had 

 previously observed the same habit 

 in a species of Buceros in Java. 

 (See HoKSFiELD and Moore's Catal. 

 Bink, E. I. Comp. Mus. vol. ii.) It 



is curious that a similar trait, though 

 necessarily fi-om veiy different in- 

 stincts, is exhibited by the termites, 

 who literally build a cell round the 

 gi'eat progenitrix of the community, 

 and feed her through apertures. 



* The hornbill is also frugivorous, 

 and the natives assert that when en- 

 deavouring to detach a fruit, if the 

 stem is too tough to be severed by 

 his mandibles, he flings himself off 

 the branch so as to add the weight 

 of his body to the pressure of his 

 beak. The hornbill alwunds in Cut- 

 tack, and bears there the name of 

 " Kuchila-Kai," or Kuchila-eater, 

 from its partiality for the fruit of the 

 Stiychnus nux-vomica. The natives 

 regard its flesh as a sovereign specific 

 for rheumatic aflections. — Asiat. Res. 

 ch. XV. p. 184 



^ Itinerarius Fratkis Odorici, de 

 Foro Julii de Portu-vahonis. — Hak- 

 lUYT, vol. ii. p. 39. 



