: But if this is so, why did he try to 'eat' the hobbits? Ents and huorns are not noted as being carnivorous. Or are we to assume that he merely intended to murder them, for malice sake alone? If so, his method seems strangely dissimilar to the Huorns, who killed by whipping their branches about, not by enveloping an enemy into their trunks.

The hobbits were asleep, and there was no need to whip his willow branches around and beat,or stangle, them to death. Besides, there was a chance they might awaken and somehow manage to escape. Much easier to just slowly envelope the hobbits, crush or suffocate them,and then spit them out, so to speak. Less effort, same result, less chance of possible injury to Old Man Willow.
~Aelmer