ANATOMY OF BIRDS
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION
MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS
CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS
LIZARD-TAILED BIRD
AMERICAN TOOTHED-BIRDS
THE OSTRICHES
THE RHEAS
EMEUS AND CASSOWARIES
THE TINAMOUS
THE KIWIS
THE PENGUINS
LOONS AND GREBES
ALBATROSSES & PETRELS
STORK-LIKE BIRDS
GOOSE-LIKE BIRDS
FALCON-LIKE BIRDS
FOWL-LIKE BIRDS
CRANE-LIKE BIRDS
PLOVER-LIKE BIRDS
CUCKOO-LIKE BIRDS
THE ROLLER-LIKE BIRDS
SPARROW-LIKE BIRDS
Birds and Birding's Guide to:
Watching THE ROLLER-LIKE BIRDS
THE ROLLERS AND THEIR ALLIES
THE HORNBILLS
Hornbill Food
The food of the Hornbills is considerably varied, consisting principally of fruits and insects, but also of snakes, lizards, small mammals, birds, and eggs, as well as flowers, growing shoots, and among the ground-inhabiting species of roots, tortoises, etc., and in fact about everything that comes in their way.
They usually beat the life out of such animals as they capture and swallow them whole, by a backward jerk of the head, as they do all their food.
The Hornbills number about seventy species, and, according to Sharpe, are disposed among twenty-one genera, but there is not complete agreement among ornithologists as to the number of genera that can be satisfactorily recognized. They are all natives of the Old World, ranging from Africa through the Indian and Malayan countries to Celebes, New Guinea, and Solomon Islands, nearly half of the species being confined to Africa.
They have been separated somewhat roughly into three groups, sometimes called subfamilies, the Ground Hornbills (Bucoracince), the True Hornbills (Bucerotina), comprising the majority of the species, and the Solid-casqued Hornbills (Rhinoplacince), with a single genus and species.
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