242 



BIRDS. 



[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 coco-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. Bird.*, 

 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, Linn, mites, who literally build a cell 

 8 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- 



