:._.- . ;_ 



and free from any effusion or disease. The rim of the mouth of the bag was irregular and shredd 

 and thinned away at its free edge." This sac contained seven or eight discoloured grapes in a 

 undigested state, but, from their appearance, had been acted upon by the gastric juice. Somewhit 

 alarmed at finding the individual thus deprived of the coating of its gizzard, Mr. Bartlett kent 

 close watch upon the bird, and in a day or two afterwards obtained another specimen of this ba^ 

 of fruit, which in every way was like the first. As the Hornbill evidently suffered no inconvenience 

 from the loss of this epithelial lining of the gizzard, it was not the result of disease • and 

 Mr. Bartlett' s conclusion was, that it was the means by which the male Hornbill supplies the 

 female with food during incubation when she is walled up in the hollow of a tree. At such times 

 the female generally becomes quite fat, while, according to Dr. Livingstone (Missionary Travels 

 in South Africa, p. 613), " the poor slave of a husband gets so lean that on the sudden lowering 

 of the temperature, which sometimes happens after a fall of rain, he is benumbed, falls down, and 

 dies." This exhaustion, Mr. Bartlett naturally considers, is caused " not only by the constant and 

 continued reproduction of the actual food taken by the male, but also by the supply of nutritive 

 secretion in which the same is enveloped." Many kinds of birds are in the habit of casting up 

 their food, at times, in a partially digested state for the nourishment of the young, or, as in the 

 case of Raptorial birds, in the shape of pellets formed of feathers, bones, or hair of the creatures 

 they have made their prey ; but in no instance that I am aware of is this accompanied by the 

 stomach's walls, save among the species of the Bucerotidse ; and this may be naturally regarded as 

 the most wonderful habit of the members of this extraordinary family. 



Male.— Bill curved, yellow. A bright-red casque rises from the culmen nearly halfway from 

 the tip, and projects back onto the head above the eye, with two deep plaits on the anterior 

 terminus. Skin around the eye blue; bare skin of throat red, with blackish mottlings. Top of 

 head and back of neck, wings and body black. Sides and front of neck to breast white, Tail, 

 basal half black, rest light chestnut. 



Bill along culmen 7 inches, length of crest on maxilla 3, height of maxilla and crest % 

 width of mandible If, height of crest 1, from eye to end of bill 5f, wing 14£, tail 11 J, tarsus 2. 



Female has the bill and crest yellow, the latter much smaller than that of the male ; bare 

 skin of eye and throat blue. Entire plumage black, except terminal half of tail, which is light 

 chestnut. 



Bill from eye to tip 4f inches, width of bill 2f, length of crest 2|, wing 13£, tail 10. 



My description and figures were taken from specimens in the collection of the British Museum. 



