288 Mr. C. F. M. Swynnerton on the 
natives, did men first obtain seed for cultivation, and they 
named the bird “ Ishérera-kuni” (“he that forages afar’’). 
114. Bycanistes cristatus. Zambesi Trumpeter. 
Bycanistes cristatus Ogilvie-Grant, Cat. B. B. M. xvii. p.417. 
T have found this bird up to the present only in Chirinda, 
where it is plentiful, though sometimes, doubtless when food 
in the forest is scarce, it will sally forth daily from the forest, 
singly, in pairs, or in parties, to feed elsewhere, returning 
in the evening, and I have little doubt that it will be 
found to utilize the other forest-patches of the district as 
bases to an equal extent. Its main food is afforded it by 
the crops of the various forest-species of Ficus, ripening at 
different times, and by the fruits of several other of the 
larger trees of the forest and veld; but in the winter it will 
also take toll of the passing swarms of locusts, one specimen 
which I examined last June having its stomach crammed 
with these insects. This example differed from the usual type 
in having a few rufous feathers behind and above each eye, and 
a nearly uniformly black crest, whitish spots occurring only 
on the cheeks; a casque and bill of the usual colour, but 
somewhat shorter and of a different shape, the front corner 
of the former, which usually projects at a fairly sharp angle, 
being rounded off. 
The cries of these Hornbills are somewhat varied, but 
harsh in the extreme, something between the bray of a 
donkey and an idiotic laugh, and when a large mixed party 
of this and the following species are gorging themselves in 
the branches of a large fig-laden “ Chisipi” or “ Tsamvu,” 
and break off the feast (till then, perhaps, interrupted only 
by an occasional short nasal sound of a conversational 
nature) to join, for a moment, all together, in one of their 
periodical noisy choruses, one iivoluntarily thinks of a 
diabolical midnight revel, somewhere in the lower regions, 
of maudlin Bacchanalians (B. cristatus) and lost souls 
(B. buccinator). 
(This Hornbill is not included in Mr. W. L. Sclater’s 
List, and is new to the South-African Fauna.—P. L. S.] 
