194 STRANGE DWELLINGS. 



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 

 Korwd.' I saw a slit, only about half an inch wide and three or 

 four inches long, in a slight hollow of the tree. Thinking the 

 word ' Korwe' denoted some small animal, I waited with interest 

 to see what he would extract ; he broke the clay which sur- 

 rounded the slit, put his arm into the hole, and brought out a 

 Tockus, or Red-breasted 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 en- 

 trance, 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 gene- 

 rally becomes 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 temperature, which sometimes hap- 

 pens after a fall of rain, he is benumbed, falls down, and dies. 

 I never had an opportunity of ascertaining the exact length of 

 the confinement, but on passing the same tree at Kolobeng 

 about eight days afterwards, the hole was plastered up again, as 

 if in the short time that had elapsed the disconsolate husband 

 had secured another wife. We did not disturb her, and my 

 duties prevented me from returning to the spot. 



' This (February) is the month in which the female enters the 

 nest. We had seen one of these, as before mentioned, with the 

 plastering not quite finished ; we saw many completed, and we 

 received here the very same account that we did at Kolobeng, 

 that the bird comes forth when the young are fully fledged, at 

 the period when the com is ripe ; indeed, her appearance 

 abroad with her young, is one of the signs they have for know- 

 ing when it ought to be so. As that is about the end of April, 

 the time is between two and three months. She is said some- 

 times to hatch two eggs, and when the young of these are fuU- 

 dedged, other two are just out of the egg-shells : she then 



