i88 THE BOOK OF BIRDS 



a single Hornbill to tackle, makes its appearance, he and 

 his fellows will make a concerted movement against it. 

 Such attacks often end in the death of the snake. 



Mr. Abel Chapman, in his recent book On Safari, tells 

 how, while hunting in East Africa, he heard one evening 

 at sundown " a low booming call." Presently there came, 

 " strutting towards us, great Ground-Hornbills — big birds 

 like turkeys, with red pendent wattles. It was curious to 

 notice how they squatted low to earth when a pair of 

 Bateleur eagles passed overhead on their way to roost." 



The tree-dwelling members of the family love the dense 

 forest. Their home is among the thick green foliage, fifty, 

 sixty, a hundred feet above the ground, where the berries 

 and fruit they love are plentiful. Occasionally they 

 come down for a bath in the forest pools, and they will 

 spend some time probing the soil with the points of their 

 beaks. 



But the tree-tops are not long forsaken by them. They. 

 fly up to the first bough, and so by "a succession of easy 

 jumps " they reach the highest branches, whence they send 

 forth those " loud roaring sounds " which the traveller or 

 sportsman, new to the jungle, may be forgiven for hearing 

 with alarm. 



Though active and lively enough, they are clumsy in 

 flight, the wings flapping desperately. What with the 

 noise of the wing-beats which (owing probably, as Mr. 

 Ogilvie-Grant suggests, to the air passing between the 

 open ends of the quill feathers) is said to be almost like 

 "the rushing of an express train," and the noisy habit of 

 clattering their beaks as they fly, the Hornbills cannot be 

 said to be pleasant neighbours. 



But in captivity they sometimes develop ways and 

 whims which are decidedly interesting. For instance, 



