BIRD-NOTES 61 



affords splendid protection against the attacks of snakes, 

 monkeys, and predaceous arboreal Carnivora, such as 

 Arctogale, Hemigale, Paradoxurus, etc. 



One pair of Hornbills will use the same tree as a 

 nesting-place for many years in succession, and, seeing 

 what difficulty there must be in finding a suitable 

 site, and what labour goes to the perfecting of it, this 

 constancy to locality is no matter for surprise. One, 

 two, or three eggs are laid ; the egg of Buceros rhino- 

 ceros is white, closely mottled with brown, giving it 

 a pepper-and-salt appearance ; that of Anthracoceros 

 malayanus is pure white. The young nestlings are 

 hideous, naked squabs with protuberant abdomens and 

 loose, wrinkled skin. The pygidium, which is that part 

 of a bird's anatomy known colloquially as the " Pope's 

 nose," is turned upwards and forwards, thus conceal- 

 ing the oil-gland. The feet are relatively very large ; 

 their soles and the prominent " heels " (junction of 

 tibia and metatarsus) are densely covered with granular 

 scales. It is chiefly on the heels that the young nest- 

 ling rests, and not on the plantar surface of the feet, 

 as erroneously shown in Wallace's Malay Archipelago.* 

 Even in a six weeks' old nestling the feathers merely 

 show as small points just pushing through the skin, 

 and it is not till the ninth or tenth week after hatch- 

 ing that the nestlings present a decently clad appear- 

 ance. 



In spite of their repulsive appearance, Dayaks will 

 eat the young nestlings raw. The native method of 

 catching the female during incubation is ingenious, 

 though decidedly brutal. The tree is scaled, the en- 

 trance to the nest is broken open, and the frightened 

 1 Vol. I., p. 212 of the original (1869) edition, 



