The Pied HoruhiU. 
3 
" of ' simple imprisonment,' is one of the unsolved riddles of Nature. 
" This curious liahit is peculiar to the llornhills. but seems to be common 
■' to every member of the faniil\- .... Another curious feature .n 
" the nesting;- habits of the Hornbill does not appear to have been mentioned 
■' by any observer, and that is that during the nesting season Hornbills gj 
" about in threes, and not in pairs. I have noticed this on two occasions, 
■■ and Mr. Morne, in his interesting account of the nesting of the Grey 
'■ Hornbill at Mainpuri, which is recorded in Hume's Nests and Eggs of 
" Iiuiian Birds, mentions the presence of a third Hornbill, who ' used to 
" hover about, watch proceedings, and sometimes quarrel with her accepted 
" lord, but lie never brought food to the female.' Although Grey 
" llornbills are liy no means uncommon birds, very few nests seem to 
" ha\e been t.aken." Cjliuipscs of l)iduiii l!i>'ds. D. Dewar. 
Tliough it may appear .soniewliat like repetition, Mr. 
T")e\var is so t^rapliicall}^ descriptive that I am quoting him again 
from anotlier of his many books on Tn(han birds. 
" Hornl)ills are to be numbered among the curiosities of nature. 
" They are characterised by tlie disproportionately large beak. In some 
>pfciL's this is nearly a foot in length. The beak has on the upper 
mandible an excrescence which in some species i^^ nearly as large as the 
■■ bill its:-lf. The nesting h.abits .ire not less curiou-^ th;in the structure of 
" |-lornl)ill>. The eggs are laid in the cavity of a tree. The hen alon-e 
" .sits. When >lie has entered the hole she and the cock plaster up the 
'■ orihce until it is only just large enough to allow the insertion of the 
Hornbill's beak. The cock feeds the hen during the whole period of 
" her \-oltnil.iry inc.'i rei'r;il ion. " Hirds aj llic fiiiliiui Hill. D. Dew.ar. 
Some species certainly inflate the throat and expand the 
tail when disiilaying to the female, for I have observed this at 
the London Zoo, and if my memory serves me right I have seen 
the I'icd Hornbill so displ.'iving. 
The eggs are dingy white and have coarse pores. The 
clutch varies from one to four and is deposited upon a few- 
feathers and other debris in the botttjm of the nest cavity. 
llornbills comprise some nineteen genera and about 
seventy species, and are well represented in .A.frica, India and the 
East Indies. 
While the pair of Pied llornbills remained with me (about 
tliree months) they were kept in a roughly erected flight 8 feet 
X 5 feet X 6 feet high, in an unheated loft over my stables, and 
here they did well, soon getting rid of travel stains, and were 
