Like the toucans, the Indian Hornbills make their nest in the hole of some decaying tree, sometimes plastering up the entrance with mud, so as to leave but a small aperture, a practice which the Korwê, a species of African Hornbill, seems invariably to follow.
The female having entered her breeding-place, in one of the natural cavities of the mopane tree, a species of Bauhinia, 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. The female makes a nest of her own feathers, lays her eggs, hatches them, and remains with the young till they are fully fledged. During all this time which is stated to be two or three months, the male continues to feed her and the young family. The prisoner generally becomes quite fat, and is esteemed a very dainty morsel by the natives, while the poor slave of a husband gets so lean and weak, that on the sudden lowering of the temperature, which sometimes happens after a fall of rain, he is benumbed, falls down, and dies.
The first time Dr. Livingstone saw this bird was at Kolobeng, where he had gone to the forest for some timber. Standing by a tree, a native looked behind him and exclaimed, ‘There is the nest of a korwê.’ Seeing a slit only about half an inch wide and three or four inches long in a slight hollow of the tree, and thinking the word korwê denoted some small animal, he waited with interest to see what the Bechuana would extract. The latter, breaking the clay which surrounded the slit, put his arm into the hole, and brought out a tockus, or red-beaked hornbill, which he killed.
The brilliant Sun-birds or Suimangas (Cinnyris) of Asia and Africa, are the Colibris of the old world, equally ethereal, gay, and sparkling in their motions, flitting briskly from flower to flower, and assuming a thousand lively and agreeable attitudes. The sunbeams glittering on their bodies make them sparkle like so many gems. As they hover about the honey-laden blossoms, they vibrate rapidly their tiny pinions, producing in the air a slight whirring sound, but not so loud as the humming noise produced by the wings of the colibris. Thrusting their slender beaks into the deep-cupped flowers, they probe them with their brushlike tongues for insects and nectar. Some are emerald green, some vivid violet, others yellow with a crimson wing, and rivalling the colibris by the metallic lustre of their plumage, they surpass them by their musical powers, for the latter can only hum, but the sun-birds accompany their movements with an agreeable chirp.
ARGUS PHEASANT.
JAVANESE PEACOCK.
While the superb ocellated turkey of Honduras (Meleagris ocellata) displays, with all the pride of a peacock, the eye-like marks of his tail and upper-coverts, the no less beautifully spotted Argus, a bird nearly related to the gold and silver pheasants which have been introduced from China into the European aviaries, conceals his splendour in the dense forests of Java and Sumatra. The wings of this magnificent creature, whose plumage is equally remarkable for variety and elegance, consist of very large feathers, nearly three feet long, the outer webs being adorned with a row of large eyes, arranged parallel to the shaft; the tail is composed of twelve feathers, the two middle ones being about four feet in length, the next scarcely two, and gradually shortening to the outer ones. Its voice is plaintive and not harsh, as in the Indian peacock, which Alexander the Great is said to have first introduced into Europe, though its feathers had many centuries before been imported by the Phœnicians. The Peacock is still found wild in many parts of Asia and Africa, but more particularly in the fertile plains of India. Another species, nearly similar in size and proportions, but distinguished by a much longer crest, inhabits the Javanese forests.
The tropical wading birds of the old world are no less remarkable for beauty or size than those of equatorial America. The rose-coloured Flamingo, with red wings and black quills, adorns the creeks and rivers of tropical Africa and Asia, and in warm summers extends his migrations as far northward as Strasburg or the Rhine. The sight of a troop of flamingoes approaching on the wing and describing a great fiery triangle in the air is singularly majestic. When about to alight, their flight becomes slower, they hover for a moment, then their evolutions trace a conical spire, and finally descending, they immediately arrange themselves in a long line, place their sentinels, and commence their fishing operations.