“Well, no, Nat, I hardly like to do that. If it is as I think, it would be too cruel, for we should be starving the young, and it will be easy to get a specimen of a hornbill if we want one, though really it is such a common bird that it is hardly worth carriage as a skin.”
Just then, to show us, Ebo began to poke at the hole with the point of his spear, and we saw the point of a bill suddenly pop out and dart in again, while the great hornbill shrieked and shouted, for I can call it nothing else, so queerly sounded its voice.
“Why, it can’t be the hornbill’s nest, uncle!” I said. “Look how small it is.”
“Yes, it is small, but it is the hornbill’s nest after all,” said my uncle, as Ebo kept on poking at the hole and bringing down pieces of what seemed to be clay. Then, seeing how interested we were, he took off his basket, lay down his spear, and taking a hatchet from his waistband cut a few nicks for his toes, and began to climb up, the big hornbill screeching horribly the while, till Ebo was level with the hole, from out of which the end of a bill kept on peeping.
Then the hornbill flew off and Ebo began to chop away a large quantity of dry clay till quite a large hole was opened, showing the original way into the hollow tree; and now, after a great deal of hoarse shrieking the black got hold of the great bird that was inside, having quite a fight before he could drag it out by the legs, and then dropping with it, flapping its great wings, to the ground.
“Undoubtedly the female hornbill,” said my uncle. “How singular! The male bird must have plastered her up there and fed her while she has been sitting. That was what we saw, Nat.”
“Then there must be eggs, uncle,” I cried, with my old bird-nesting propensities coming to the front.
But Ebo was already up the tree again as soon as he had rid himself of the great screaming bird, and in place of bringing down any eggs he leaped back to the earth with a young hornbill, as curious a creature as it is possible to imagine.
It was like a clear leather bag or bladder full of something warm and soft, and with the most comical head, legs, and wings, a good-sized soft beak, a few blue stumps of feathers to represent the tail, and nothing else. It was, so to speak, a horribly naked skin of soft jelly with staring eyes, and it kept on gaping helplessly for more food, when it was evidently now as full as could be.
“Are there more birds?” said Uncle Dick pointing to the hole; but Ebo shook his head, running up, thrusting in his hand, and coming down again.