THE KORNBILLS. 353 



containing live fish, and these, when closely pressed, would jump out to escape from their pursuer, and 

 were immediately swallowed by the Hornbills. Mr. Inglis has also found bones of fish in the stomachs 

 of birds which he had shot ; and the natives of the Naga Hills affirm that when these Hornbills are 

 intent on fishing they can be approached sufficiently close to be killed by a stick. 



By far the most curious habit belonging to these birds is that which takes place during the 

 breeding season, when the male bird plasters the female into a hollow tree, there to hatch her eggs, 

 nor does he release her until the young ones are nearly full grown. It is scarcely possible to conceive 

 a practice more detrimental to the well-being of any bird than this. The exertion of feeding 

 himself as well as his wife and nestlings must entail a serious strain upon the male, while the 

 destruction of the latter must inevitably ensure the starvation of the female and of the young birds. 

 This curious habit has been well attested by observers in Asia as well as in Africa ; and the writer 

 once received from an old negro collector on the West Coast of Africa, who rejoiced in the name of 

 St. Thomas David Aubinn, and styled himself " Royal Hunter to the King of Denkera," an adult 

 female of the Black Hornbill (Sphagolobus atratus), together with a nearly full-grown young one. 

 which, he said, had been taken by him together out of the hole of a tree ; and the habits of the Horn- 

 bill in this respect were given by him in the following words : " 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 ! " 



If the last sentence is intended to represent the enraged Hornbill, it is evident that the noises 

 produced by the bird are not of that startling character ascribed to the Eastern species by Wallace, as 

 mentioned above. All accounts seem to agree that the female is shut in the hollow of a tree ; but Dr. 

 Kirk noted an exception, on native authority, and therefore one which must be confirmed by future 

 research. This is the Crested Hornbill (Bycanistes cristatus), which is a common bird on the river 

 Shire, where it goes in large flocks, and roosts regularly in the same places. " The natives say that the 

 female hatches her eggs in a hole underground, in which she is fastened by the male." Our astonish- 

 ment at the imprisonment of the female Hornbill is not lessened when it is found that the male bird 

 keeps her supplied with food by a most curious process, which accounts for the statement of Dr. 

 Livingstone* : "The first time I saw this bird was at Kolobeng, where I had gone to the forest 

 for some timber. Standing by a tree, a native looked behind me and exclaimed, ' There is the nest of 

 a Korwe.' I saw a slit only, about half an inch wide and three or four inches long, in a slight hollow 

 of a tree. Thinking the word Korwe denoted some small animal, I waited with interest to see what 

 he would extract. He broke the clay which surrounded the slit, put his arm into the hole, and brought 

 out a Tockus, or Red-beaked Hornbill, which he killed. He informed me that when the female enters 

 her nest she submits to a real confinement. The male plasters up the entrance, leaving only a narrow 

 slit by which to feed his mate, and which exactly suits the form of his beak. The female makes a nest 

 of her own feathers, lays her eggs, hatches them, and remains with the young till they are fully fledged. 

 During all this time, which is stated to be two or three months, the male continues to feed her and 

 the young family. The prisoner generally becomes quite fat, and is esteemed a very dainty morsel by 

 the natives ; while the poor slave of a husband gets so lean that on the sudden lowering of the tem- 

 perature, which sometimes happens after a fall of rain, he is benumbed, falls down, and dies." At a 

 meeting of the Zoological Society on the 25th February, 1869, Mr. A. D. Bartlett produced a curious 

 envelope, which had been thrown by a Wrinkled Hornbill (Anorrhinus corrugatus) in the Zoological 

 Gardens of London, which was found to contain plums or grapes well packed together ; and Mr. 

 Bartlett came to the conclusion that it was by means of fruit packed together in such a wrapper that the 

 male fed the female during her confinement in the hollow tree. In 1874, Dr. Murie exhibited to the 

 same society some similar envelopes, or, as he more properly called them, gizzard sacs, which had been 

 thrown up by a specimen of Sclater's Hornbill (Bycanistes subcylindricus) in the same way as by the 

 previous bird. On examination, these gizzard sacs proved to be the interior lining of the bird's 

 stomach ; and it was evident, fi*om the short time that elapsed between the throwing up of the 

 envelopes, that, as Dr. Murie observed, the bird in the interval had made a new one, and got rid of it 

 also, without apparently being any the worse. One can readily imagine, however, that this process, 

 being continued during the long period that the female is shut up in the hole of the tree, must tend 



* " Missionary Travels in South Africa." 



