File:The royal natural history (1893) (14761779016).jpg

Identifier: royalnaturalhist47lyde (find matches)
Title: The royal natural history
Year: 1893 (1890s)
Authors: Lydekker, Richard, 1849-1915 Sclater, Philip Lutley, 1829-1913 Frostick, W. B., former owner. DSI Brooks, W. T., former owner. DSI
Subjects: Zoology Natural history
Publisher: London and New York : Frederick Warne & Co.
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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of red. Mr. Humehas published notes on the nesting of the present species, and it is interesting tonote that many observers in India must have discovered the fact of the strangenesting-habits of the hornbills previous to Livingstone, who is generally creditedwith having been the first to draw attention to the incarceration of the femalebird during the period of incubation. Colonel Tickell, for instance, writing in 1855of the nesting of the great pied hornbill in Tenasserim, says:— On my way back HORNBILLS. 65 to Moulmein from Mooleyit, when halting at Kyik, I heard by tlie merest chancefrom the Karen villagers that a large hornbill was sitting on its nest in a treeclose to the village, and that for several years past the same pair of birds hadresorted to that spot for breeding. I accordingly lost no time in going to the placethe next morning, and was shown a hole higli up in the trunk of a moderatelylarge straight tree, branchless for about fifty feet from the gromid. in which I was
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TWO-HORNED HOUNBILL. told the female lay concealed. Tlu hole was covered with a thick la\-fr of mud,all but a small space, through Avhich slie could thrust the end of her bill, and soreceive food from the male. One of the villagei-s at length ascen<led with (--i-eatlabour by means of bamboo-pegs driven into the trunk, and commenced digfini-out the clay from the hole. While so employed, the female kept uttering herrattling sonorous cries, and the male remained perched on a neighbourino- tree,sometimes flying to and fro, and coming close to us. Of liim tlie natives appearedto entertain great dread, saying that he was sure to assault tliem : and it was with VOL. IV.—5 66 PICARIAN BIRDS. some difficulty that I prevented them from shooting him before they continuedtheir attack on the nest. When the hole was sufficiently enlarged, the man whOhad ascended thrust in his arm, but was so soundly bitten hy the female, whosecries had become perfectly desperate, that he quickly withdrew it, n

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