Two-horned Hornbill 



55 



nearly five feet long and having a very large, much-curved bill, and a large, 

 broad casque with the upper surface concave in front and terminating in two 

 laterally projecting points. The plumage is black and white, while the greater 

 wing-coverts and quills are black with their bases and ends white, and the tail 

 yellowish white 

 with a broad sub- 

 terminal black 

 band on each 

 feather; the bill 

 and casque are 

 yellow, tinged with 

 red at the tips and 

 orange in the 

 middle. The 

 female is slightly 

 smaller but other- 

 wise is similar in 

 all but the color of 

 the casque. This 

 great bird is a 

 forest species, keep- 

 ing much to the tall 

 trees and rarely if 

 ever descending to 

 the ground. It 

 goes about in pairs, 

 or more often in 

 flocks of from five 



to twenty or more, making its presence known by the great noise produced by 

 its wings in flight, a sound that may often be distinguished for a mile or 

 over. It feeds largely on fruit, but insects and lizards are also eaten. The 

 eggs, two or three in number, are laid in the usual manner, that is, in hollow 

 trees with the entrance walled up with mud. 



Naked-throated Hornbills. In the forms thus far mentioned the chin and 

 throat are feathered, but we now come to a group of five genera in which these 

 parts are naked. Of these two are confined to the Philippine Islands, Gym- 

 nolamus, with a single species having a large, swollen, though somewhat com- 

 pressed casque, and Penelopides, with six species ranging in length from nine- 

 teen to twenty-four inches and having a compressed casque of moderate size, 

 and the basal half of both mandibles covered with a grooved plate. Another 

 genus, Rhytidoceros, of five Indian and Oriental species, is distinguished by hav- 

 ing a small, low, rounded casque which is apparently composed of imbricated 

 plates, and there are somewhat similar plates on the base of the bill. One of the 

 best-known species is the Malayan Wreathed Hornbill (R. undulatus}, a bird 

 forty-five inches in length, with the plumage mainly black, glossed with dark 



FIG. 157. Two-horned Hornbill, Dichoceros bicornis. 



