14.8 THE BIRDS OF ETHIOPIAN AFRICA 



consists mainly of insects. The red-beaked wood-hoopoe (Irrisor erythrorhynchus), 

 of central and South Africa, is about the size of an ordinary hoopoe, but appears 

 more slender in shape owing to the long tail. While in colour the head and throat 

 are bluish green, the rest of the plumage shows a metallic sheen of black, green, 

 blue, and violet ; each of the tail-feathers, with the exception of the middle pair, is 

 marked with a circular white spot near the tip, and the beak and feet are red. 



The wedge-tailed section of the hornbill family, Bucerotidce, is represented by 

 the two exclusively African genera Lophoceros and Ortholophus. Comparable in 

 size to magpies, these birds are characterised by the lateral compression of the 

 beak, which has its upper portion ridged or domed, but generally without a horn- 

 like process. Among the numerous representatives of the first-named genus, the 

 red-billed hornbill (L. erythrorhynchus) inhabits the north-eastern and north- 

 western districts of the continent, while the brown hornbill (L. melanoleucus) is a 

 southern type. 



Very remarkable are the great ground-hornbills, which are birds of about 

 the size of turkeys, obtaining their food on the ground, and resorting to trees only 

 to breed and to rest. They build in the hollows of large trees, and feed on small 

 mammals, reptiles, and insects. These birds, which are generally seen in the open, 

 live entirely on the ground, and wander about in parties of five or six. It is 

 believed that several females lay in the same nest, which is situated in a hole high 

 up in the stem of a tree. Of the two species, one is Bucorax (or Bucorvus)_ 

 abyssinicus, of north-eastern and western Africa, while the second (B. cafer) 

 ranges from Cape Colony and South-east and South-west Africa to Equatoria. 

 In the latter the large black casque is nearly or quite closed, although in the 

 former it is open in front and ridged. In the two species the naked parts are 

 respectively blue and red in the male and purple and blue in the female. 



In the Picidce mention may be made of the African green woodpeckers 

 (Dendropicus), in which the upper-parts are either uniform olive-green or golden 

 yellow, sometimes approximating to red, with dark brown and white or olive- 

 yellow transverse barrings. 



Closely allied to the woodpeckers is the widely spread family of barbets 

 (Capitonidce), which is well represented in Ethiopian Africa. Among the southern 

 species, the Cape barbet (Trachyphonus cafer) is a brilliantly coloured bird of 

 about the size of a spotted woodpecker, with a squared tail, like other members 

 of the group. In colour it is bluish black marked with white above and yellow 

 below, but the lower part of the back is also yellow, the upper tail-coverts are 

 tipped with scarlet, and the orange throat is marked by a white gorget. The 

 tooth-billed barbets take their name from the presence of one or two notches 

 on each side of the upper half of the slightly curved beak, and are further 

 characterised by the well-developed black bristles in front of the eye and under the 

 beak. The West African Pogonorhynchus dubius is black above with crimson 

 ■wing-coverts, cheeks, and ear-coverts, a white patch on the back, and the under- 

 pays red blotched with yellow. An east coast species is the white-eared barbet 

 (Smilorhis leucotis), a bird about the size of a sparrow, belonging to the exclusively 

 Ethiopian group of tinker-barbets, typified by the genus Barbatida, of which 

 B. duchaillui is a well-known western representative. In these birds the bristles 



