Author Description

Beautifully illustrated and magnificently comprehensive, The Hornbills is the most authoritative treatment of all 54 species of these fascinating birds available. Found throughout the Old World--from sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian Subcontinent to southeast Asia and Indonesia (to Papua New Guinea)--they are birds of the forest who survive largely on fruits and insects. Named after their large, distinctively shaped bills, they have long fascinated ornithologists with their fascinating social behavior and nesting habits. The first part of the book offers an overview of the family as a whole, describing all facets of hornbill life--including taxonomy, distribution, biology, and behavior--with a summary of the literature, a wealth of examples, and numerous illustrations. The second part features the species accounts, each of which contains a complete description of the bird in its natural state. Each account is culled from the best available sources, including the author's own research. This volume--as with others in the Bird Families of the World series--will be indispensable to professional and amateur ornithologists alike.Bird Families of the World is a new multivolume series of handbooks that will prove indispensable to both the professional scientist and the ever-growing body of amateur ornithologists. Each volume will provide a comprehensive synthesis of current knowledge on one bird family or several related families. In each book the reader will find: six to nine general chapters on the biology, feeding ecology, breeding behavior, evolutionary relationships, and conservation of birds in the family; specially commissioned color plates by a leading artist; black-and-white illustrations of anatomy and behavior; descriptions of each species that cover appearance, weight, measurements, field characters, voice, habitat, food, breeding behavior, life cycle, range, and status (with distribution map). They will provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date species-leve