ANATOMY OF BIRDS
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION
MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS
CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS
LIZARD-TAILED BIRD
AMERICAN TOOTHED-BIRDS
THE OSTRICHES
THE RHEAS
EMEUS AND CASSOWARIES
THE TINAMOUS
THE KIWIS
THE PENGUINS
LOONS AND GREBES
ALBATROSSES & PETRELS
STORK-LIKE BIRDS
GOOSE-LIKE BIRDS
FALCON-LIKE BIRDS
FOWL-LIKE BIRDS
CRANE-LIKE BIRDS
PLOVER-LIKE BIRDS
CUCKOO-LIKE BIRDS
THE ROLLER-LIKE BIRDS
SPARROW-LIKE BIRDS
Birds and Birding's Guide to:
Watching THE ROLLER-LIKE BIRDS
THE ROLLERS AND THEIR ALLIES
THE HORNBILLS
Nesting Habits of the Hornbills
The nesting habits of the Hornbills are without a parallel in the bird world. This chapter in their life history was naturally received with incredulity when first brought to scientific attention, but has since been abundantly confirmed by competent observers. Selecting a cavity of suitable size in the trunk or a large limb of a tree, the female enters, even before depositing the clutch of eggs, when the male, assisted to some extent by the female, proceeds to wall up the entrance with mud, sometimes mixed with the bird's own droppings or composed entirely of the latter substance, leaving only a narrow slit through which the tip of the bill of the female may be thrust to receive the food passed in by the male outside.
Within these cramped quarters the eggs are laid and incubated, and the young, born naked and helpless, are cared for until they are nearly or quite fledged, before the barrier is broken down and the mother and offspring liberated. The male is said to be very assiduous in supplying the female with food, and after all her incarceration may not be such a hardship as it would at first seem, for if dragged forth both she and the young are found to be in excellent flesh, a circumstance well known to the natives, who lose no opportunity in securing the occupants of a nest whenever they can find one.
The nest cavity, as may be supposed, presents a very unsanitary appearance and odor, and when the female is hauled out she likewise presents a bedraggled and forlorn presence, being unable to fly or even stand up. But as if all this was not a sufficiently severe ordeal, it appears that the female undergoes a complete moult during the imprisonment.
This fact, like so many others in the economy of the Hornbills, was at first deemed impossible, but it is now settled beyond question as true. Some years ago Dr. Giinther of the British Museum exhibited before the Zoological Society of London the hollow trunk of a tree from Graham Town, Cape Colony, in which a Hornbill (Lophoceros melan-oleucus) had nested. He said: “The female when taken was unable to fly and was simultaneously moulting all the wing- and tail-feathers, thus presenting the appearance of a half-fledged young bird.
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