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PICARIAN BIRDS. 
black, with a red patch on the lower mandible, and the feet are dusky black; 
while the bare parts of the face are red, with the exception of the naked skin 
round the eye and on the middle of the throat, which is blue. The female has 
the bare skin of the throat and region of the eye purple. In North-Eastern 
Africa this hornbill is said to be found in the wooded steppes and on the 
mountains up to a height of four thousand feet, though more common between 
ABYSSINIAN GROUND-HORNBILL (1 Mat. size). 
one and two thousand feet. After the breeding-season they assemble in small 
flocks, when as many as ten or a dozen are seen together. Of the habits of the 
South African ground-hornbill more is recorded. Known to the Boers as the 
bromvogel, this species is regarded as a fetich among many of the native tribes, 
being a rain-omen with the Kaffirs, who believe that if one of these hornbills is 
killed there will be rain for a long time, and who, therefore, in times of drought 
will throw one of the birds into a vley, in order that rain may follow. 
Colonel Bowker says that the bird is so offensive that the native idea is 
