THE HOME OF THE HORNBILL 
Buceros and its allies lay white eggs and deposit them in 
a hole in a tree. It has been pointed out that birds 
that lay white eggs generally deposit them in a situation 
remote from the light. But this is by no means univer- 
sally true. Some exceptions referred to in the present 
book are certain cuckoos and the podargus ; there are 
others. Still, the hornbills conform to this partial 
generalization. When the time has arrived for egg- 
laying and incubation, the male bird carefully plasters 
up his wife within her dwelling and takes upon himself 
the care of feeding her. He remarks, in effect, that she 
must attend to her family and not gad about; but at 
the same time does not spare himself, for males in the 
breeding season are frequently in a miserable physical 
condition. They are merely, as it has been expressed, 
a bag of rattling bones. On the other hand, the newly 
hatched young are little lumps of fat and jelly, feather- 
less, and impotent to help themselves. This careful 
guarding of the family may be a defence against the 
prowling and marauding cat, as well as other carnivores 
and snakes. It is certain that the visitor will find 
several hornbills at the Zoo. There are in Nature more 
than sixty species at present known. 
THE “ MoreE-Pork,” CUVIER’S PODARGUS 
Aristophanes made birds talk, and so too did Chaucer. 
This practice is continued by those who in modern times 
have invented pseudo-vernacular names for birds based 
upon their supposed utterances. Some of the remarks 
thus put into the mouths of the feathered creation have 
a point, others have not. As an instance of the latter is 
a weird-looking bird of which there have been several 
examples at the Zoo, the last but one of which was 
harboured in the insect house. This bird, Podargus 
cuviert, is one of the churn owls or goatsuckers, and is a 
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