334 GROUND HORNBILL 



other eagles and birds of prey, including the 

 great tawny eagle, the hawk eagle, the African 

 hawk and the crested hawk eagles, besides num- 

 berless vultures, buzzards, hawks, kites, and 

 falcons. Secretary birds pursue their benevolent 

 mission in the slaughter of the snakes, and about 

 seven or eight varieties of owls shatter the nerves 

 of the rats, mice, and other small mammals and 

 birds. 



But before I leave the subject of the scavengers 

 I must write a few lines concerning that weird 

 type, common throughout South East Africa, 

 called the ground hornbill. 



No more entertaining creature was ever 

 domesticated ; no more shameless thief was ever 

 unmasked. The appearance of this bird (called 

 Dendera by the natives of Zambezia) would sug- 

 gest that he had been intended by Nature to pose 

 as the incarnation of dull, unctuous respectability 

 — as a sort of hereditary sepulchre-keeper, or pall- 

 bearer-in-chief to the feathered world. The 

 ground hornbill is a large bird garbed in rusty 

 black, with one or two white wing-feathers. His 

 chief feature is an immense beak, upon which, 

 when tame, he will resignedly submit to have 

 fastened a pair of spectacles, provided with which 

 his appearance is unspeakably mirth-provoking. 

 He is a tireless if deliberate pedestrian, and, when 

 domesticated, wanders about the gardens, which 

 he speedily rids of all noxious forms of insect life, 

 uttering a curious wheezy moan which earned 

 for the first one I was enabled to study the 

 appropriate name of the "hard breather." He 



