182 PERCHING OMNIVORA. 



foliage. When on the ground they do not walk, but 

 hop as magpies do. 



A bill of this form cannot be efficient against any 

 very powerful animal, because its great size and length, 

 and light structure, render it impossible to close the 

 mandibles with much force, though the bill may snap 

 at small objects with much less labour on the part 

 of the bird than if it had been of stronger texture. 

 These birds connect the omnivorous races pretty 

 closely with the insect feeders ; for though they all 

 eat carrion when it can be procured, the various 

 insects which breed in and consume rotten wood in 

 the tropical forests appear to form the chief subsist- 

 ence of those hornbills which are more exclusively 

 forest birds ; while those which feed more on the 

 ground pick up ground beetles, which are also nu- 

 merous in those localities. The serrated margins 

 and snapping motion of those large but lightly formed 

 bills are sufficient so to crush an insect as that it can 

 be advantageously taken into the stomach ; and when 

 they have recourse to carrion they seem to be equally 

 attracted by the putrefying animal matter, and the 

 larvae with which it is inhabited. 



The other extreme, birds of Paradise and analo- 

 gous genera, as may be seen by the figure, have bills 

 smaller and firmer, and approximating more to those 

 of the gallinidae ; and though they are understood to 

 feed less exclusively on the ground than any species 

 of that order, yet their food bears no inconsiderable 

 resemblance ; and it is not unworthy of remark, that 

 the native localities of the more remarkable of the 

 perching gallinidse and the birds of Paradise border 

 with each other in their native localities, as the 

 peacock in India, the Argus pheasant in Sumatra 



