90 
BIRDS OF BRITISH BURMAH. 
and they confine themselves almost exclusively to the evergreen forests, 
where they frequent the very highest trees. Their note is very peculiar 
and can be heard at the distance of a mile or more. It commences with a 
series of whoops, uttered at intervals of about half a minute for five or ten 
minutes ; then the interval between each whoop grows shorter and shorter, 
till the whoop, whoop, whoop is repeated very quickly ten or a dozen times 
— the bird ending up by going off into a harsh quacking laugh. There is 
then a pause of ten minutes or a quarter of an hour or more, and then it 
recommences/^ He adds that the specimen shot by him had eaten 
fruit. 
Genus ANTHRACOCEROS, Beich. 
478. ANTHEACOCEROS ALBIEOSTEIS *. 
THE SMALL PIED HORNBILL. 
Buceros albirostris, Shaw, Gen. Zool. viii. p. 13; Tichell, Ibis, 1864, p. 179. 
Hydrocissa albirostris, Jerd. B. Ind. i. p. 247 ; Salvad. JJcc. Born. p. 82 ; Bl, 
B. Burm. p. 68 ; Wardlam Ramsay, Ibis, 1877, p. 455 ; Inglis, 8. F. v. p. 20 ; 
Bingham, S, F. v. p. 84 ; Anders. Yunnan Exped. p. 577 ; Hume 8f Dav. S. F. 
vi. p. 100; Oates, S. F. vii. p. 46 ; Hume, S. F. viii. p. 86 ; Bingham, S. F. viii. 
p. 462, ix. p. 158. Anthracoceros malabaricus {Gm.), Elliot, Mon. Bucer. 
pi. xiii. (part.). 
Description. — Male and female. Abdomen, sides of the body, vent and 
under tail-coverts white ; the remainder of the plumage black, more or 
less glossy ; the four outer pairs of tail-feathers very broadly tipped with 
white; all the secondaries and all the primaries except the first two 
tipped with white; edge of the wing white. 
Bill yellowish white ; the base of the casque and an oblong patch on the 
fore part dark brown ; base of both mandibles black, extending to the fore 
part of the naked skin of the face ; orbital skin bluish white ; mouth dark 
ochraceous brown ; edges of eyelids brown ; iris red to brown ; legs dusky 
green ; claws horny. The female has a patch of reddish brown in front of 
the black of the lower mandible, and there is considerably more brown on 
both mandibles and on the casque than in the male. 
Length 28 inches, tail 11, wing II, tarsus 2, bill from gape 5. The female 
is smaller : wing 10, tail 10, bill from gape 4*5. In the very young bird 
there is no casque. 
The casque of this Hornbill is rather cylindrical and reaches over about 
* As Mr. Hume has shown, Gmelin's name of malabaricus applies rather to A. affinis 
than to the present species. In any case I think it preferable to use Shaw's name. 
