Chap. VIIL] THE HORNBILL. 243 
extraordinary bird may serve to explain the statement 
of the Minorite friar Odoric, of Portenau in Friuli, who 
travelled in Ceylon in the fourteenth century, and 
THE HOHNBILL. 
brought suspicion on the veracity of his narrative by 
asserting that he had there seen "birds with two 
heads:' 1 
The Singhalese have a belief that the hornbill never 
resorts to the water to drink ; but that it subsists exclu- 
sively by what it catches in its prodigious bill while 
sure of his beak. The hornbill flesh as a sovereign specific for 
abounds in Cuttack, and bears there rheumatic affections. — Asiat. Bes. 
the name of " Xuchila-Kai," or ch. xv. p. 184. 
Kuchila-eater, from its partiality 1 Itinerarim Fbateis Odokict, 
for the fruit of the_ Strychnus nux- de Foro Julii de Portu-vahonis, 
vomica. The natives regard its &c. — Haklutt, vol. ii. p. 39. 
K 2 
