The Royal Hunter of Denkera 173 



the time of our wars in that country), and the forests of 

 the interior. One day there arrived a case of birds, each 

 specimen done up in a paper wrapper, but beyond the 

 fact that a bird was " common " or " rare," there was 

 nothing particular to attract one's interest, till two 

 packages were opened, containing a mother Hornbill 

 and her baby. To these the following account of their 

 habits was attached — " When the female go to sit, the 

 male he her shut in tree. If he no bring food, then she 

 angry. If he no then bring food, then she more angry — 

 swear. If he no then bring food, then she curse him for 

 die — Man beef, beefy, beef." AH the above is perfectly 

 intelligible except the last sentence. Does it mean to 

 represent the cry of the imprisoned female ? Scarcely this, 

 for the note of a Horn- 

 bill is quite different ; 

 or is it old Aubinn's 

 imagination that in her 

 distress the lady speaks )^^F 



English, before she 

 proceeds to finish off A Baby HornbaL 



her husband and "curse him for die"? The portrait of 

 " Mr. St. Thomas David Aubinn, Esq." is copied from a 

 sketch drawn for me by my friend, Governor Ussher, and 

 it is here reproduced. Since Mr. Ussher's work in the early 

 seventies, no one has explored our colony on the Gold 

 Coast in pursuit of its natural history, and the good work 

 done by the " Royal Hunter to the King of Denkera " has 

 not been amplified. 



In the British Museum we have still the interesting 

 specimen of a baby Hornbill obtained by Dr. A. R. Wallace 

 in Sumatra. It is entirely bare of feathers, but as first 

 brought in by the natives, it is described by him as a most 

 curious object, without a particle of plumage on any part 

 of it. " It was exceedingly plump and soft," he says, " and 



