Cuar. VIII.) THE HORNBILL. 243 
extraordinary bird may serve to explain the statement 
of the Minorite friar Odoric, of Portenau in Friuli, who 
travelled in Ceylon in the fourteenth century, and 
THE HORNBILL. 
brought suspicion on the veracity of his narrative by 
asserting that he had there seen “birds with two 
heads.” } 
The Singhalese have a belief that the hornbill never 
resorts to the water to drink; but that it subsists exclu- 
sively by what it catches in its prodigious bill while 
sure of his beak. The hornbill 
abounds in Cuttack, and bears there 
the name of “ Kuchila-Kai,” or 
Kuchila-eater, from its partiality 
for the fruit of the Strychnus nux- 
vomica. The natives regard its 
flesh as a sovereign specific for 
rheumatic affections.—Asiat. Res, 
ch. xv. p. 184. 
1 Ttinerarius Frarris Oporict, 
de Foro Julii de Portu-vahonis, 
&e.—Haxtovyt, vol. ii. p. 39. 
R 2 
