c. BUCORVUS CAFFER. 



Buceros carunculatus cafer, Schleg. Mus. Pays-Bas (1862) p. 20. 

 Bucorvus leadbeateri, Gray, Hand-1. Birds, pt. ii. (1870) p. 131. sp. 7920. 

 Bucorax guineensis, Bocage, Proc. Zool. Soc. (1873) p. 699, 701, figs. 3 & 7 (juv.) 



Casque small, excessively compressed, completely closed in front. 

 Hab. Caffraria (Schlegel); Mossamedes (Anchieta). 



There appear to be three forms or geographical races of this species, exhibiting their characters 

 chiefly in the shape of the casque. Some writers have considered these differences sufficient to 

 establish separate specific ranks, while others regard them as merely indicating age or possibly 

 sex. While our material is not ample enough for us to determine positively that there is more 

 than one species of the Ground-Hornbill, yet we certainly are able to decide that the differences 

 met with in the form of the casque of individuals are not those belonging solely to young birds or 

 characteristic of sex. I have therefore preferred in this paper to keep the three forms as distinct 

 in their synonymy as I may have been able, but to consider all three as but geographical races of 

 one variable species. Prof. Schlegel was the first to draw attention to the shapes of the various 

 casques, and gave names to the possessors of them as follows : those individuals which have a high 

 horn-like casque and a large round opening in front he called Buceros carunculatus abyssinicus, 

 this being the typical Buceros abyssinicus of authors; those with a smaller, straighter casque, and 

 a small opening in front, he named Buceros carunculatus guineensis, and for the third, with an 

 exceedingly compressed casque, entirely closed in front, he proposed the appellation of Buceros 

 carunculatus cafer. These three conspecies of the Professor inhabit respectively Eastern Africa 

 north of Caffraria (rare in Sennaar), Western Africa, and Caffraria. Prof. Barboza du Bocage, in 

 the ' Proceedings ' of the Zoological Society of London for 1873, p. 698, has published a 

 very interesting paper on these three varieties, and decides that two are certainly distinct, but 

 that the third is still doubtful from want of sufficient material to enable him to form a judgment. 

 He figures the heads of the three styles, and exhibits fairly their different characters. Unfor- 

 tunately the names of two are transposed, and the B. guineensis (Schlegel) with the small casque 

 is called cafer, and the B. cafer (Schlegel) with the closed casque is named B. guineensis. In 

 attempting to define the geographical distribution of these three species (if they really are such), 

 we are at once met with several awkward facts, which, with our present knowledge, can 

 hardly reconcile ornithologists to the belief that these forms are really specifically distinct. 

 To indicate what this difficulty is, I will give the distribution of the species as laid down by 

 Professors Schlegel and Bocage. The B. abyssinicus (typical) inhabits Abyssinia 5 according to 



