472 AVES—HORNBILL. 
~~ 
The usual place where the great horned owl breeds is in the cavern of a 
rock, the hollow of a tree, or the turret of some ruined castle. Its nest is 
near three feet in diameter, and composed of sticxs, bound together by the 
fibrous roots of trees, and lined with leaves on the inside. It lays about 
three eggs, which are larger than those of a hen, and of a color somewhat 
resembling the bird itself. The lesser owl of this kind never makes a nest 
for itself, but always takes up with the old nest of some other bird, which it 
aas often been forced to abandon. It lays four or five eggs; and the young 
are all white at first, but change color in about a fortnight. The other owls 
in general build near the place where they chiefly prey; that which feeds 
upon birds, in some neighboring grove; that which preys chiefly upon mice, 
near some farmer’s yard, where the proprietor of the place takes care to give 
it perfect security. In fact, whatever mischief one species of owl may do in 
the woods, the barn owl makes a sufficient recompense for, by being equally 
active in destroying mice nearer home; so that a single ow] is said to be 
more serviceable than half a dozen cats in ridding the barn of its domestic 
vermin. ‘In the year 1580,” says an old writer, ‘‘at Hallontide, an army 
of mice so overrun the marshes near Southminster, that they ate up the 
grass to the very roots. But at length a great number of strange painted 
owls came and devoured all the mice. The like happened again in Essex 
about sixty years after.” 
ORDER II.—OMNIVOROUS BIRDS. 
brrps of this order have the bill middle sized, robust, sharp on the edges; 
the upper mandible more or less convex, and notched at the point; feet with 
four toes, three before and one behind; wings of medium size, with the 
quill feathers terminating in a point. 
THE HORN BILLA 
Tue rhinoceros hornbill, or rhinoceros bird, is nearly as large as the 
turkey ; the bill is ten inches long, and two and a half thick at the base. 
On the upper part is an appendage as large as the bill itself, and turning 
upwards, which measures eight inches in height. There is nothing else 
remarkable in the bird, as the general color of the plumage is black. This 
bird is found in most parts of the East Indies, where (like the raven) it feeds 

1 Buceros rhinoceros, Lix. The genus Buceros has the bill convex, curved, sharp- 
edged, of large dimensions, serrated at the margin, with a horny protuberance near the base 
of the upper mandible rising into a crest; nostrils behind the base of the bill covered by a 
membrane ; legs short, muscular; lateral toes equal, the external one united to the second 
ioint ; the first three wing feathers graduated, the fourth or fifth longest. 
