176 . 



DESCRIPTION OF THE BUCEROS 



The bill is extremely large, cleft to the eye, smooth, hard, considerably 

 arched throughout, much compressed, except at the base, where it is as 

 broad nearly as high, the cutting edges broken and separated in the cen- 

 tral parts of the bill, closed and even towards the extremities, but not in- 

 terlocked. The cutting edges are composed of a separate brittle substance, 

 which, in the perfect bill, is furnished with serrations. But as these ser- 

 rations, together with most of the substance containing them, are not deve- 

 loped in the young bird, and are soon, for the most part, destroyed, nor 

 ever afterwards replaced, in the maturer one, it is as difficult precisely to 

 define them as to conceive the purpose for which they were intended. 



The hard substance in which these serrations are cut, likewise lines 

 the whole inside of the bill, and is never itself entirely destroyed on the 

 cutting edges, though the teeth-like processes are : its entrance into the 

 composition of the bill, must give the bill considerable additional power. 



The palate is placed near the cutting edge of the upper mandible : in 

 the lower mandible it is remoter, except near the tip, M^here, as in the upper 

 one, the palate lies in contact with the cutting edges of the bill, both man- 

 dibles of which are nearly solid towards their forward extremities. A sharp 

 ridge runs down the entire centre of the inside of either mandible. The 

 upper and lower mandibles are of equal length, and rather sharply pointed. 



The casque is rested on the basal part of the bill and on the cranium, 

 passing beyond the posterior boundary of the latter more than an inch and 

 a half. Its most forward point is about four inches before the eye ; its 

 m.ost hindward three and three-quarter inches behind it. From the tip 

 of the bill to the forward point of the casque, nine inches. The casque is 

 frail, hollow, very large, flat topped, broader than high, as broad almost 

 before as behind, its upper surface level with the margins, posteriorly 

 dipped between them, and inclined towards the ridge of the bill, anteriorly ; 



