318 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. X 



valuable suggestion of Mr. Ogilvie Grant, that the '* extraordinary 

 noise made « * « * while flying * may be ' produced 

 by the air rushing between the quills " which are not covered at 

 the base by other feathers, leaving a translucent spot that reminds 

 one of the bull's-eye windows in some moth's wings. Here and 

 on other (white) parts of the plumage one is apt to find a yellow 

 stain, not part of the true coloration, but apparently laid on by the 

 bird itself in the operation of ^' preening." "The food consists 

 mainly of fruit, but insects and lizards are also eaten " to which 

 we may add snakes. Indeed, any bird or beast that will eat lizards 

 will also eat snakes if small enough, which is fair, because both 

 lizards and snakes will commonly eat birds and their eggs on the 

 same condition. The great hornbill, however, is on the whole much 

 less carnivorous and insectivorous than the great Indian bustard 

 (Eupodotis)^ and is as good for the table, that is, very second-rate 

 game, but quite good enough to be very welcome as a change from 

 touo-h fowl and goat. He is very much better than the " beefsteak- 

 bird " (white-necked stork), but this delicacy of the past genera- 

 tion is not often found at a modern camp-table. Certain African 

 hornbills are said to eat habitually not only snakes but 

 carrion — low-lived fowls, which condescend to go on the ground; 

 our hornbills will not, under less persuasion than that of an arrow. 

 Their o-reat size and frequent stupidity lay them open to the shafts 

 of the Katkaris of Kolaba, and certainly, with the choice before us, 

 we should choose a rook-rifle for their slaughter rather than a shot- 

 gun. A wounded hornbill will often disappear into the forest in 

 a way extraordinary for so great a bird, moving through the thick 

 tree-tops without noise, and hanging on with a dying clutch, as green 

 pigeons often do. 



The extraordinary nidification of these birds is well described and 

 illustrated by a "heading," to which the artist's name might as 

 well have been put. Borrowed plates are fairly acknowledged 

 throughout these volumes. Of our other Bombay hornbills, Jerdon's 

 Hydrocissa coronata becomes Anthracoceros, and Meniceros dicornis 

 (the common grey hornbill) Lophoceros birostris. It occurs as far south 

 with us as the neighbourhood of Mahad in sight of Mahabaleshvar, 

 but is not a bird of deep forest. Anthracoceros coronatus may be found 



