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 HORNBILL. 



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. Res. 



the name of " Kuchila-Kai," or ch. xv. p. ] 84. 



Kuchila-eater, from its partiality 1 Itinerarius Feateis Odobict, 



for the fruit of the Strychnus nux- de Foro Julii de Portu-vahonis, 



vomica. The natives regard its &c. — Hakluyt, vol. ii. p. 39. 



R 2 



