HORNBILL. The name of an African and East Indian family of large birds, forming the family Bucerotithe, and remarkable for the enor mous size of the bill, and for a large bony pro tuberance (epithema, or casque) with which it is usually surmounted. The bill is curved, broad at the base. compressed toward the tip. the bony protuberance on the upper mandible as suming different forms in different species. Two subfamilies are recognized—the ltucoracimie (or Bueorvinfr) and the Bneerotinas. The former are African. have the casque hollow. and are of ter restrial habits. They are described under GROUND HORNBtLL. The latter contain the 'true' or typical hornbills, of which there are many genera and species RTC(' over Northwestern Africa, India, and the ()victual region. ..1I1 are rather large birds, the biggest liar feet in length iron, the tip of the beak to the end of the tail: 11.me long. full tails, and strong teet, tatted for arboreal habits. Their colors are mainly black and white; the great bills are yellow, often strongly marked with red and black. They are omnivorous, and in captivity show :in ostrich like voracity. anything ott•red. bones and all. The food is always caught in the tip of the 1611, then tossed into the air and recaught. In nature they feed largely upon Movers and fruit, cut from their fastenings by the saw-edged beak. Their flight is slow and heavy. but it may he long sustained. It is said to be very noisy, the sound of the wings of a large hornbill being audible for a mile, and when two or three are flying together the noise is said to resemble it -team-engine.
But.rnt IlAntTs. Smile, if not all of the spe cies. have the remarkable habit of imprisoning the female during incubation. This is done by stopping up the entrance to the nest. which is in a 'hollow tree, witlt mud or excrement. There to be some whether it is done frail the outside by the male. using mud. or from the inside by the female, using her out excrement. Perhaps the differs in different species. any ease, a small opening is left through widen the (intuit' ran extend her bill and secure the food which the male brings. Such nests are an exeellent proteetion against enemies, and are said to be used repeatedly. The young are born
naked.
This remarkable method of nidilication is with a strange feature of bird economy first noticed and studied by Bartlett, who shows Zoiiloyn al Society of London. 1 ) t hat hornbills, at intervals, cast the epithelial layer of their gizzards—a layer formed by the secretions of eertain glands. This is ejected tire in the form of it bag, the mouth of which i3 closely folded. and A•Itielt is filled with the fruit the bird has been eating. these castings form a nutritious atol partly digested supply of food for the sitting female is not known. sult Newton, Dictionary of Birds. London. 1ti9(1.
The bird ordinarily presented as 'the' hornbill is Bac( ros rog, from the East Indies, which was known and quaintly de scribed. from preserved beads alone, by Pliny and the naturalists of the Ages. A closely allied species of 'lava (Buce•oR clris) is drown on the accompanying plate. AnOt her style of the nal tame, is shown in h'igure I of the plate (//ydroeorax /ilunicorniR. of the Phil ippin•s), which illustrates almost equally well •ionitt•ai' of India I Diehoe, ros bieoraiR). whose plate.cas,ine is bent into a trough, and terminates in two horns in front. This familiar species is found eastward to Sumatra, where also, among other kind-., lives that solid eascitied one lf bilropIthr gab at u R1 . out of whose 'helmet' ivory-like ornaments are carved. 'rids seems to be a remarkable species several ways. An other curious form of neat; is that of the Papuan l'h ylidt)r,roR plira Iris, in which the top of the bill has numerous eurving transverse folds. Promi nent among Afriean genera are the trumpeter hornbills, one species of which is the 'crested' (13yeanisles rristo(ltA). the beak is corn pa•atkely short. In some genera the bill ap proaches the shape of it toucan s, and hits little or no ca,que. history of the family, with col ored plates. by I). li. Elliot. entitled Ilowlyraph uj the " a 1lid ' published in London in An excellent popular account is given in the Royal Natural History (London, 1)49.3). Sue ('late of lloitNiutt.s AND ToucANs,