The poor fellow was falling, falling, but “the female within the nest screamed a number of times. I wondered whether the interloper could seduce the male, but from subsequent observations it seemed unlikely that she would. The male returned again to the nest hole, and a few minutes later was in the upper part of the tree knocking about on dead branches until he dislodged a piece of bark. He clamped his bill on the bark until it was largely fragmented. Then he moved toward the foreign female. If he presented the bark [a cherished play object among hornbills] one would suppose that she had some attraction for him. After a moment, however, he changed his direction, flew down to the big limb below, bent over the nest hole, and gave the token to his mate, accompanied by a feeding chuckle. Subsequently he returned to perch quietly within eight feet of the intruding female. At 7:30 a.m. the two of them flew away together. As the nesting season progressed, he became less tolerant of her intrusions...On February 3 I again watched her fly in behind the male and alight on the nest tree, making considerable noise. The male stopped feeding his mate, swooped at the interloper and drove her down toward the ground. However, when he flew away, she followed a short distance behind.” The vampire was hard to discourage. A few days later she was observed at the entrance to the nest, trying to break the wall with her beak. Probably there was a sex murder case in the making. But “After five minutes the male arrived and...drove the foreign female to another tree, flying at her so hard that he knocked leaves from intervening branches. He returned to his nest with a small stick held like a cigar. His mate, who had remained silent, now began her wailing screeches.... The intruding female, persistent as usual...had followed the male back to the nest tree. In a few minutes he flew at her again, flying faster than hornbills usually do as he chased her from one tree to another.” But his ordeal of bachelorhood was nearly over. Five days later mother and young emerged from the nest: “The pair of hornbills were perched side by side on their tree. Not long after I heard a great flutter of wings. I looked back to see both members of the pair pursuing a foreign female.... When the parents later came to our garden, she did not follow.” _Ants With Tailor Skills_ Ants developed the craft of sewing long before humans. There are species of tailor ants in Australia, Africa and India that have distinctly ingenious habits. They make nests of leaves sewed together with silken threads, secreted by their own larvae, which they use both as needles and shuttles.