Note 128 — GOMES EANNES DE AZURARA; (continued 3)

(p. 156). [This bird is the Buceros nasutus of Linnæus, the same that the French call Calao-Tock. Notwithstanding some exaggeration which may be noted in the description of Azurara, it is beyond doubt that the bird of which he treats here is that which the Negroes of the Senegal call Tock, and which the Portuguese named Cróes. Latham calls it Buceros Africanus.

Brisson made two species, Linnæus and Latham two varieties; but Buffon considered them as individuals of the same species, a fact which is otherwise witnessed to by Sonini. Buffon says that the beak, considered apart from the body, is a foot in length and of enormous size (see Buffon, Plate 933). The "work" of which Azurara speaks is not due only to the pores of the beak, but chiefly to a series of cuts or incisions, in the form of half-moons, which this bird has upon its beak. It was the famous naturalist Aldrovandi who first gave a picture of the enormous beak of this bird; but the oldest description of it is certainly that given by Azurara. It was not, therefore, Père Labat who first among travellers saw and carefully observed this notable bird, but Lourenço Diaz and the other Portuguese, his companions in 1447: that is, at a date almost three hundred years before Labat. On this bird the reader may also consult the Memoir of Geoffroi de Villeneuve (Actes de la Société d'histoire naturelle de Paris).]—S.