Page:Natural History, Birds.djvu/180

Rh was, however, apprehensive that some might arrive every moment, especially if I should be compelled to remain there all night." To obviate such a necessity, he fired his fowling-piece at intervals; and at length heard shots in reply, which proved to be those of his faithful Hottentot attendants, by whom he was quickly delivered from his perilous situation. He did not, however, forget his Touraco, the innocent occasion of his misfortune; and now, by the aid of the dogs, which had accompanied the Hottentots, it was at length found, squatting under a thick bush. He afterwards set snares for them upon the trees to which they resorted to feed, and by these means captured them alive.

The enormous development, and singular protuberances of the beak in this Family, at once arrest the attention of the observer. In many of the species this organ is not only considerably larger than the head, but has an immense projection on its summit of various uncouth form, sometimes resembling a horn, sometimes the crest of a helmet, &c., which not unfrequently encroaches upon the skull far up towards, or even beyond, the crown of the head. The edges of both mandibles are more or less notched or jagged very irregularly, as if chopped with a blunt knife; but this is observed only in adult birds, and may perhaps be the result of the hardness of some description of their food.