232 
A WILLING CAPTIVE. 
traveller that the female, on entering her nest, undergoes an actual 
imprisonment. The male plasters up the entrance, leaving only a 
narrow slit exactly adapted to the form of his beak. The nest is made 
of the female's own feathers. There she lays her eggs, and there she 
patiently abides until the young are fully fledged ; her partner mean- 
time, like a good ^paterfamilias, providing his family with their daily 
food. What is the result ? One by no means satisfactory as a reward 
for conjugal and paternal fidelity : the prisoner grows so fat as to be 
reckoned among the dainty dishes of an African epicure ; but the 
assiduous husband becomes so bare and feeble, that, when a sudden 
lowering of the temperature occurs after a fall of rain, he gets a chill, 
falls down, and perishes. 
The principal food of the hornbiLls would seem to be fruit ; but no 
doubt they feed also on carrion, as weU as on small mammals, such as 
rats and mice, which they crush with their strong mandibles, and then 
swallow whole. The Eastern species evince a decided partiality for 
nutmegs, and thence their flesh acquires a fine aromatic flavour. They 
frequent the woods in large flocks, perching on the highest branches, or 
sweeping through the green fields with gi'eat rapidity, and raising at 
stated intervals their peculiar voice, which is composed "of the transient 
blast of a bugle and the sudden hiss of an exploding sky-rocket." 
Wandering along the shores of the island of Burn, Mr. Bickmore 
fell in with two species of those remarkable birds, the mound-builders 
(Megapodiuis), — so called from their singular habit of accumulating 
great heaps of sticks and sand, frequently twenty or twenty-five feet 
in diameter, and five feet in height. These great mounds are their 
nests, where they deposit their eggs. One species, however, bun'ows 
deeply in the sand. The natives brought to Mr. Bickmore a specimen 
which they had captured while she was crawling up from her hidden 
nest. Mr. Bickmore kept her for some time ; but, after laying an egg 
more than one-third the size of her whole body, she died. Two eggs of 
the same dimensions were found at the bottom of the tunnel she had 
excavated in the loose soil. This bird generally comes down from the 
hills in the early evening to deposit her eggs, and then her wailing cry 
