The Breeding Biology of Certain East African Horn Bills (Bucerotidae).

Abstract

Although the habits of hornbills have long been recognised as exceptionally interesting, little in the way of connected observations on their behaviour at the nest has been published for any species. The first concern of anyone finding a nest has nearly always been to cut down the tree or at least break open the hole. Chapin's notes on Bycanistes albotibialis (1931) and Hoesch's on Lophoceros fiavirostris lcucomelas (1934) are exceptional; but there still appear to be no records through all the stages of a hornbill's nesting without interference, conclusive if not fatal, by man. Of the three species for which I am able to put forward original observations in this paper, two of them, Bycanistes cristatus and Lophoceros deckeni, have,' so far as I can discover, not had their nesting described in any way before.