THE PIED HORNBILL 



birds is permeated by air-tubes connected with the wind-pipe, and it is said that 

 the movement of the air in these increases the noisiness of the flight. 



Mountain-forests bordering valleys, and big forests near rivers, are the 

 favourite haunts of the typical hornbills. Here the great birds perch in flocks 

 which may number a score in individuals ; for hours together they sit motionless, 

 with the neck drawn back on to the body, and the body itself pressed down on to 

 the feet. 



Their food consists chiefly of the fruits of the trees in which these birds 

 take up their quarters, the favourite fruit being figs ; but in captivity hornbills 

 will eat fruits of all kinds, as well as animal food. These birds kill every small 

 creature that comes in the way, and throw them up in the air before swallowing 

 the body. When perching, hornbills utter from time to time a loud cry, recalling 

 the bark of a dog, this changing into a loud scream when they are wounded. 



The most remarkable feature connected with the habits of these birds is, 

 however, connected with their nesting arrangements. As was first observed in 

 India in 1855 by a military officer devoted to outdoor natural history, when the 

 female has laid her clutch of eggs, varying in number from two to half a dozen, in 

 some hole in a tree and commenced to incubate, the male walls up the entrance to 

 the apartment with clay, leaving an aperture only just large enough for her to 

 protrude her beak and receive the food brought regularly by her hard-working 

 mate. The object of this immuring process is doubtless to protect the female and 

 her eggs or young from the attacks of birds-of-prey, or predatory arboreal 

 mammals. Under these circumstances sanitary matters cannot, of course, be 

 attended to, and the nest-hole, consequently, soon becomes an evil-smelling mass 

 of abominable filth. In order that no time may be wasted, the female moults 

 during the period of her confinement, a process which adds still more to the mess 

 in the hole. The young, which come forth from the eggs almost naked, remain 

 in the breeding-hole till they are fully fledged. To reach the food brought by her 

 partner, the female, at any rate during the early stages of incubation, has to climb 

 up to the aperture in the wall of clay. 



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