358 
THE KILIMANJARO EXPEDITION. 
incubation lias entirely to rely on her mate for daily 
sustenance. I sliot a fine male liornbill once, at 
Taveita, and lie fell to the ground mortally wounded. 
His dying struggles were quite touching to behold, 
and I felt almost criminal in having caused his death. 
His breath came and went in great gasps, and his 
snowy stomach was streaked with red blood. His 
large eye with long lashes gazed at me with calm 
wonder and vague reproach, as if to say, “ What ill 
have I done that you should kill me ? ” He dis¬ 
dained to snap at the stick with which I gently poked 
his opened beak, and still kept his eye fixed on me, 
regarding my impertinent investigations of his person 
as unnecessary insults. So he lay during some 
minutes, with long shuddering breathings raising and 
lowering the feathers of his breast and back. Then 
another hornbill, evidently his mate, came and perched 
on the bough of a neighbouring tree and uttered a 
low cry. The dying bird started up to life again, 
raised his head high, flapped his wide-spread, glossy 
wings, dragged himself painfully along the ground, 
and gave vent to one sonorous bellow; then his great 
head dropped on one side, and his wide-open eye 
glazed with an expression of eager hope hardened in it 
even in death. 
A beautiful turaco inhabits the forests in Kilima¬ 
njaro. It is bluish-green-purple, with a white-lined 
crest and scarlet skin round the eyes. Its wings, like 
most other turacos, have intense crimson pinions, and 
therefore it is a gorgeous object as it flaps its loose 
flight through the forest aisles. 
Several species of pigeon are found on the moun¬ 
tain, notably one very fine bird, Palumbus arquatrix , 
which inhabits the upper regions. 
