HORNBILLS. 405 



of the bill, with the variously shaped ' horn ' or ' casque ' at the base of the culmen, 

 though not present in all the species, in some of the small ones being only indicated 

 by a compressed ridge. The distribution of the feather tracts is peculiar, since in the 

 large species there is a tendency to obliterate the spaces altogether, but the feathers 

 are inserted very sparsely, and there are no down feathers on the trunk. The strong 

 hairy eyelashes are another peculiarity, and in having ten tail-feathers only, the horn- 

 bills disagree with most of the kingfishers. The skeleton is bulky, but the bones are 

 very light, being, as they are, permeated by air to an unusual degree. The sternum 

 is quite peculiar, being very broad behind with only two shallow incisions. A gall- 

 bladder is present. 



The hornbills are not very numerous, but, as Mr. D. G. Elliot remarks, " As they 

 exist at the present day, they exhibit to us probably but a remnant of the great family 

 which once dwelt amid the forests of that mighty eastern continent, of which a large 

 portion is now beneath the waters. So, many gaps exist, not one only we may 

 presume ; and the diversified forms that would supply the necessary links to com- 

 plete an unbroken chain of connected species throughout the family have long 

 since disappeared." This same author, in 1882, when finishing his great mono- 

 graph of this family, recognized sixty species, the geographical range of which covers 

 parts of three of the zoo-geographical divisions of the globe, viz., the Ethiopian, 

 Oriental, and Australian regions, though in the latter confined to its Austro-Malayan 

 province. 



Strange as is the aspect of the hornbills, their manners of life are not less peculiar, 

 and some are even completely unique. Dr. A. R. Wallace writes thus of their flight 

 and manner of feeding : " They have powerful wings ; but their heavy bodies oblige 

 them to use much exertion in flight, which is therefore not very rapid, though often 

 extended to considerable distances. They are (in the Indian Archipelago at least) 

 entirely frugivorous ; and it is curious to observe how their structure modifies their 

 mode of feeding. They are far too heavy to dart after the fruit, in the manner of the 

 trogons ; they cannot even fly quickly from branch to branch, picking a fruit here and 

 there ; neither have they strength nor agility enough to venture on the more slender 

 branches, with the pigeons and barbets ; but they alight heavily on a branch of con- 

 siderable thickness, and then, looking cautiously round them, pick off any fruits that 

 may be within their reach, and jerk them down their throats by a motion similar to 

 that used by the toucans, and which has been erroneously described as throwing the 

 fruit up in the air before swallowing it. When they have gathered all within their 

 reach, they move sideways along the branch by short jumps, or rather, a kind of 

 shuffle, and the smaller species even hop across to other branches, when they again 

 gather what is within their reach. When in this way they have progressed as far as 

 the bough Avill safely carry them, they take a flight to another part of the tree, where 

 they pursue the same course. It thus happens that they soon exhaust all the fruit 

 within their reach, and long after they have left a tree the barbets and Eurylaimi 

 find abundance of food on the slender branches and extreme twigs. We see there- 

 fore that their very short legs and syndactyle feet remove them completely from the 

 vicinity of the toucans, in which the legs are actively employed in moving about after 

 their food. Their wings, too, are as powerful as those of the toucans are weak ; and 

 it is only the great weight of their bodies that prevents them from being capable of 

 rapid and extensive flight. As it is, their strength of wing is shown, too, by the 

 great force with which they beat the air, producing a sound, in the larger species, 



