242 
BIKDS. 
[Chap. VIII. 
and some others equally charming ; when at the first 
dawn of day, they wake the forest with their clear reveil. 
It is only on emerging from the dense woods and 
coming into the vicinity of the lakes and pasture of the 
low country, that birds become visible in great quanti- 
ties. In the close jungle one occasionally hears the call 
of the copper-smith 1 , or the strokes of the great orange- 
coloured woodpecker 2 as it beats the decaying trees in 
search of insects, whilst clinging to the bark with its 
finely-pointed claws, and leaning for support upon the 
short stiff feathers of its tail. And on the lofty 
branches of the higher trees, the hornbill 3 (the toucan 
of the East), with its enormous double casque, sits to 
watch the motions of the tiny reptiles and smaller birds 
on which it preys, tossing them into the air when seized, 
and catching them in its gigantic mandibles as they 
fall. 4 The remarkable excrescence on the beak of this 
is " never seen in the unfrequented guards their treasures from the 
jungle, but, like the coeo-nut palm, monkey tribes ; her formidable bill 
which the Singhalese assert will nearly filling the entire entrance, 
only flourish within the sound of See a paper by Edgar L. Layard, 
the human voice, it is always found Esq. Mag. Nat. Hist. March, 1853. 
near the habitations of men." — Dr. Horsfield had previously ob- 
E. L. Layard. served the same habit in a species 
1 The greater red-headed Barbet of Buceros in Java. (See Hors- 
(Megalaima indica, Lath. ; M. Phi- field and Moore's Catal. Birds, 
lippensis, var. A. Lath.), the inces- E. I. Comp. Mus. vol. ii.) It is 
sant din of which resembles the curious that a similar trait, though 
blows of a smith hammering a necessarily from very different in- 
cauldron. stincts, is exhibited by the ter- 
2 Brachypternus aurantius, Zi?m. mites, who literally build a cell 
3 Buceros pica, Scop. ; B. Mala- round the great progenitrix of the 
baricus, Jerd. The natives assert community, and feed her through 
that B. pica builds in holes in the apertures. 
trees, and that when incubation 4 The hornbill is also frugivor- 
has fairly commenced, the female ous, and the natives assert that 
takes her seat on the eggs, and the when endeavouring to detach a 
male closes up the orifice by which fruit, if the stem is too tough to be 
she entered, leaving only a small severed by his mandibles, he flings 
aperture through which he feeds himself off the branch so as to add 
his partner, whilst she successfully the weight of his body to the pres- 
