while a boat was being made watertight, I had the good fortune to obtain
a male, female, and young bird of one of the large hornbills. I had
sent my hunters to shoot, and while I was at breakfast they returned,
bringing me a fine large male of the Buceros bicornis, which one of them
assured me he had shot while feeding the female, which was shut up in a
hole in a tree. I had often read of this curious habit, and immediately
returned to the place, accompanied by several of the natives. After
crossing a stream and a bog, we found a large tree leaning over some
water, and on its lower side, at a height of about twenty feet, appeared
a small hole, and what looked like a quantity of mud, which I was
assured had been used in stopping up the large hole. After a while we
heard the harsh cry of a bird inside, and could see the white extremity
of its beak put out. I offered a rupee to anyone who would go up and get
the bird out, with the egg or young one; but they all declared it was
too difficult, and they were afraid to try. I therefore very reluctantly
came away. About an hour afterwards, much to my surprise, a tremendous
loud, hoarse screaming was heard, and the bird was brought me, together
with a young one which had been found in the hole. This was a most
curious object, as large as a pigeon, but without a particle of plumage
on any part of it. It was exceedingly plump and soft, and with a
semi-transparent skin, so that it looked more like a bag of jelly, with
head and feet stuck on, than like a real bird.
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."
CHAPTER IX. NATURAL HISTORY OF THE INDO-MALAY ISLANDS.
IN the first CHAPTER of this work I have stated generally the reasons
which lead us to conclude that the large islands in the western portion
of the Archipelago--Java, Sumatra, and Borneo--as well as the Malay
peninsula and the Philippine islands, have been recently separated from
the continent of Asia. I now propose to give a sketch of the Natural
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