The Van Buren press., 1895-07-13
HABITS OF THE HORNBILL.
These Little Feathered Folks Have Great
Idea of Home.

These Little Feathered Folks Have n Great
Idea of Home.
A curious South African bird is the
variety of hornbill know as Toclus
melanoleucus, LIGHT, regarding which
a paper by DR.. Schonland, of the Al
bany museum, was read at recent
meeting of the South African Philo-
sophical society, at Cape Town. The
nesting habits of this hornbill are SO
extraordinary that they have been re-
peatedly referred to by various writer's;
but owing to the difficulty of finding
the nests of the birds, many details of
the earlier accounts are not quite cor
rect, while others are not touched upon
at all.
During the last four years DIR, Schon-
land has examined, he said, no fewer
than seven nests altogether, with the
birds belonging to most of them. The
birds are often seen in winter in large
numbers in the gardens at Graham's
Town, but in the summer they are
only to be met with in proximity to
closely wooded byloofs, and this is
due to the fact that they nest in
places where hollow trees are to
be found. All observers agree that
during incubation the female is
prisoner in kind of cage, the
entrance to which is closed to such
an extent that 1t has to be broken
open before the female can leave
the nest. In all the cases he had
seen the nests were built in hollow
trees. Mrs. Barber had said that
they sometimes made the nests be-
tween the crowded stems of the tall
euphorbia; but they could not be rec
onciled with some of her other state
ments. The birds had apparently no
preference for any particular tree SO
long as it suited their purpose. The
essential point for them was that the
hollow stem should be sufficiently
large for the female to move about in
the nest, and whether there is one or
more entrances all must be OF such
nature that they can be partially or
wholly closed up. The female, once
inside, is fed by the male through the
narrow slit left in the material with
which the entrance is closed or
through natural cleft in the wood
In the latter case the main entrance is
closed up completely. This may be a
precautionary measure to protect the
female during the period of incuba-
ton.
He questioned the statement whether
the male built or the female, as Liv-
ingston stated he had been told by a
native. The female took an essential
part in the plastering up of the en-
trance, Having described the nests
which he had seen, he proceeded to
state that the female, after going into
the nest, usually began to moult, and
was sometimes almost naked. She
was usually very fat while in prison,
as the male bird brought her food
every few minutes. As soon as danger
approached, the female bird climbed
up the nest as far as possible away
from the entrance and kept perfectly
quiet until the danger had passed. The
young behaved in the same man.
ner, the birds relying for pro-
lection on the fact that the
nest is not easily recognized as
such. No doubt if attacked the horn
bill could give good account OF itself.
The female is imprisoned for seven or
eight weeks, certainly for not less than
six weeks. The eggs are laid about
the end of December, or beginning of
January, and are usually three or four
in number and vary in size. He felt
certain from minute observation that
the female constructed her own prison,
and left it some time before the young
were fully developed. On her leaving
it was plastered up again in the same
manner, and the female helped the
male feed the young. He concluded by
stating that there was plenty of scope
for further investigation into the nest
ing habits of the hornbill.-St. James
Gazette.