Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/181

Rh HORNBILL, the English name for a long while generally given to all the birds of the Family Bucerotidoe of modern ornithologists, from the extraordinary horn-like excrescence (epithema) developed on the bill of most of the species, though to which of them it was first applied seems doubt ful. Among classical authors Pliny had heard of such animals, and mentions them (Hist. Xat., lib. x. cap. Ixx.) under the name of Tragopan ; but he deemed their existence fabulous, comparing them with Pegasi and Gryphoncs in the words of Holland, his translator (vol. i. p. 290) &quot; I thinke the same of the Tragopanades, which many men affirme to bee greater than the /Egle ; having crooked homes like a Ram on either side of the head, of the colour of yron, and the head onely reJ.&quot; Yet this is but an exag gerated description of some of the species with which doubtless his informants had an imperfect acquaintance. Mediaeval w r riters found Pliny s bird to be no fable, for specimens of the beak of one species or another seem occasionally to have been brought to Europe, where they were preserved in the cabinets of the curious, and thus Aldrovandus was able to describe pretty fairly and to figure (Ornithologia, lib. xii. cap. xx. tab. x. fig. 7) one of them under the name of &quot;Rhinoceros Aiis,&quot; though the rest of the bird was wholly unknown to him. When the exploration of the East Indies had extended further, more examples reached Europe, and the &quot; Corvus Indicus cornutus &quot; of Bontius became fully recognized by Willughby and Ray, under the title of ths &quot; Horned Indian Raven or Topau called the Rhinocerot Bird.&quot; Since the time of those excellent or nithologists our knowledge of the Hornbills has been steadily increasing, but it must be confessed that in regard to many points there is still great lack of precise information, and accordingly the completion of Mr Elliot s &quot;Monograph of the Bucerotidie &quot; (now in course of publication) is most earnestly to be desired, for therein it is to be hoped that all questions respecting their history and classification may be fully treated. At present great diversity of opinion prevails as to how many real genera the Family comprises, or how many species. The group, though no doubt ought to be enter tained as to its limits, has not attracted sufficient notice from ornithologists, and therefore, apart from the merest superficial characters, the difference of the several sections which it includes has never been properly explained, nor have their distinctions been placed on a firm basis. Some authors appear to have despaired of dividing it satisfactorily, and have lefb all the described species in the Linnaean genus Buceros, as for example, Professor Schlegel (Cat. du Mus, des Pays Bas, Buceros) ; others have split that genus into more than a score a number which seems to be quite unnecessary. Sundevall (Tentamen, pp. 96, 97), with his usual caution, has restrained himself to the recognition of three genera, but it is unquestionable that more should reasonably be admitted, though the present writer is not prepared to state how many are required.

1em 1em 1em

As a whole the Hornbills, of which more than 50 species have been described, form a very natural and in some re spects an isolated group, placed by Professor Huxley amoug his Coccygomorphce. It has been suggested that they have some affinity with the Hoopoes (Upupidcv), but even if that view be good the affinity cannot be very near. Their supposed alliance to the Toucans (Rhamphastidai) rests only on the apparent similarity presented by the enormous beak, and is contradicted by important structural characters. In many of their habits, so far as these are known, all Hornbills seem to be much alike, and though the modifica tion in the form of the beak, and the presence or absence of the extraordinary excrescence, whence their name is 