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Updated: July 12, 2025
For upon the theory of "Natural Selection" all birds have a common origin, from which they diverged by infinitesimal changes, so that we ought to meet with sufficient changes to warrant the belief that a hornbill could be produced from a humming-bird, proportionate time being allowed.
See a paper by Edgar L. Layard, Esq. Mag. Nat. Hist. March, 1853. Dr. Horsfield had previously observed the same habit in a species of Buceros in Java. Birds, E.I. Comp. The hornbill abounds in Cuttack, and bears there the name of "Kuchila-Kai," or Kuchila-eater, from its partiality for the fruit of the Strychnus nuxvomica.
Taking the bamboo, he quickly ascended the ladder till he got near enough to reach the hornbill, which was still standing screaming defiantly on the upper round; and before it was aware of what the black was about, the latter slipped the noose over the bird's head and drew it tight, and then with a violent jerk pulling it off its perch, down it came, with its huge bill first and its wings fluttering, to the ground, where Dan quickly despatched it.
Being almost as tall as Saloo himself, he easily got his arm into the cavity that contained the nest, and commenced groping all over it. He could find no other bird, nor yet an egg. Only the dried-up ordure of the denizens that had lately occupied the prison cell, along with some bits of the shell out of which the young hornbill had been but recently hatched.
The first time that Dr Livingstone himself saw the bird, it was caught by a native, who informed him that when the female hornbill enters her nest, she submits to a positive confinement. The male plasters up the entrance, leaving only a narrow slit by which to feed his mate, and which exactly suits the form of his beak.
That it was neither bird nor human being, Ossaroo could tell the moment he heard the first "wha." Almost as soon were the others convinced that it was neither: for on turning their eyes to the sycamore, they saw upon the projecting spur that had been so lately occupied by the hornbill, a creature of a very different kind in short, a quadruped.
Syme even saw, with a queer thrill, one dancer dressed like an enormous hornbill, with a beak twice as big as himself the queer bird which had fixed itself on his fancy like a living question while he was rushing down the long road at the Zoological Gardens. There were a thousand other such objects, however. There was a dancing lamp-post, a dancing apple tree, a dancing ship.
The only good bird seen was the fine Amboyna lory, but these were always too high to shoot; besides this, the great Moluccan hornbill, which I did not want, was almost the only bird met with. I saw not a single ground-thrush, or kingfisher, or pigeon; and, in fact, have never been in a forest so utterly desert of animal life as this appeared to be.
The large hornbill was named "Gasalo," the smaller kind "Talactic," the large pigeon "Buabu," a bee-eater "Patirictiric," and other names were "Pipit," "Culiaun," "Alibasbas," "Quilaquilbunduc," "Papalacul," "Batala," "Batubatu," "Culasisi." Some of the spiders here were of great size, and in these mountain forests their webs were a great nuisance.
"What is it?" again asked the captain, now no longer anxious or alarmed, but only curious to know what the strange creature could be. "Buld, cappen biggee buld." "Oh, a bird, that's all; what sort of bird?" "Honbill; ole hen hornbill. She on ha ness inside, hatchee egg; she built up in dat; ole cock he shuttee up with mud."
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