THE CLOWNS OF THE FOREST 
RUTH is sometimes stranger than fiction, 
even in natural history. Thus Pliny, while 
he swallowed the stories about dragons and 
other fabulous creatures, refused to believe in 
the existence of hornbills. Later naturalists were obliged 
to acknowledge the occurrence of these “ Rhinoceros 
Birds,” but declined to credit the extraordinary stories 
that travellers told of their habits. Nevertheless, these 
stories contained more than the proverbial grain of truth. 
It is, to-day, an established fact that, when the 
breeding season comes round, the lady hornbill is 
barricaded up in a hole in the trunk of a tree, and 
remains thus incarcerated until the eggs are hatched. 
In order that the female may not starve to death a 
window is left in her prison, through which the male 
bird feeds her. This extraordinary habit seems to run 
through the whole family of hornbills. The hole in 
which the hen-bird is plastered up is usually situated 
high in a lofty tree ; when she has taken her place in it, 
both she and her husband proceed to close it up, except 
for the slit above referred to, by means of earth mixed 
with bird-droppings, or in some cases with droppings 
alone. 
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