HORNBILL, the name given to a group of birds, from the horn-like excrescence (epithema) on the bill of most species; they form the family Bucerotidae, allied to the hoopoes and king fishers. It is divided into the Bucerotinae or true hornbills and the Bucorvinae or ground hornbills, which contain but one genus, Bucorvus, confined to Africa.
In the helmet hornbill (Buceros vigil), the epithema is solid, but in all the other species is honeycombed with air spaces. Hornbills are found in Africa, south-eastern Asia and the Malay Archipelago. They live in flocks and feed mainly upon fruits and seeds, though the larger forms will devour snakes and the smaller eat insects. They breed in holes in trees, laying large white eggs. When the hen begins to sit, the cock plasters up the entrance with mud, leaving only a small hole through which the hen receives the food he brings. This he casts up enfolded in the lining of the gizzard (C. W.
An account of a nestling hornbill is found in Wallace's Malay Archipelago.