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He had eaten hornbills before, and more than once; had seen others eat them; but had never known or heard of the dish being followed by symptoms similar to those now affecting and afflicting them. The bird itself might have eaten something of a poisonous nature, which, although it had not troubled its own stomach, acted as an emetic upon theirs.
This practice is fully in accordance with the general habit of tropical or sub-tropical fruits, which lay themselves out to deserve the kind offices of monkeys, parrots, toucans, hornbills, and other such large and powerful fruit-feeders.
The blue sky, a few drifting white clouds, the beautiful light of the fresh, glorious morning, afforded moments of delight that made one forget all the trouble encountered in getting here. It seems as if the places least visited by men are the most attractive. Four hornbills were flying about.
One of the popular dances consists in a comical imitation of the movements of the hornbill, but no special significance attaches to the dance; it seems to be done purely in a spirit of fun. Young hornbills are occasionally kept in the house as pets. We know of no other bird that plays any part in the religious life of the Kenyahs or affects them in any peculiar manner. The Pig
The nesting habits are not less curious than the structure of hornbills. The eggs are laid in a cavity of a tree. The hen alone sits. When she has entered the hole she and the cock plaster up the orifice until it is only just large enough to allow the insertion of the hornbill's beak. The cock feeds the sitting hen during the whole period of her voluntary incarceration.
The extraordinary habit of the male, in plastering up the female with her egg, and feeding her during the whole time of incubation, and until the young one is fledged, is common to several of the large hornbills, and is one of those strange facts in natural history which are "stranger than fiction."
Instead of digging for food with its snout as other pigs do, it feeds on fallen fruits from various trees. We saw also a number of butterflies, which Mr Hooker said were peculiar to Celebes. Besides the babirusa, herds of wild pigs of large size abound in the northern forests, and numerous jungle-fowl, hornbills, and great fruit-pigeons.
Amongst the bats, three white ones were, on the occasion of my visit, very conspicuous, and our followers styled them the Raja, his wife and child. Hawks and sea-eagles are quickly attracted to the spot, but only hover on the outskirts of the revolving coil, occasionally snapping up a prize. I also noticed several hornbills, but they appeared to have been only attracted by curiosity. Mr.
The cormorant has a higher reputation of the sort to live up to than even the hog, and some of the hornbills, though less familiar, are endowed with Gargantuan appetites. Yet the ringdove could probably vie with any of them. Mr.
Like most other large tropical fruits, it no doubt owes its original development to the selective action of monkeys, hornbills, parrots and other big fruit-eaters; and it shares with all fruits of similar origin one curious tropical peculiarity.
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