PTEROGLOSSUS PA CILOSTERNUS, Gow.
Double-banded Aracari.

Speciric CHARACTER.

Pter. vostro et corpore superiore ut in Ptero. pluricincto ; corpore inferiore sulphureo, vittd pectorali
altera nigra, altera sanguinea.

Head, neck and chest black ; upper surface, wings and tail dark olive-green; rump blood-red ;
under surface yellow, stained with blood-red, and crossed by two bands, one on the
breast black, and the other on the abdomen blood-red stained with black ; thighs
chestnut, slightly fringed with sulphur-yellow ; along the culmen a broad mark of black,
united to a mark of the same hue, which passes down the base and occupies the lower
angle of the upper mandible, the sides of which are orange, passing into pale yellow at the
tip; under mandible black ; both surrounded by a narrow raised band of rich orange-
yellow ; irides brown ; orbits grey; legs and feet pale green.

‘Total length, 18 inches ; dz//, 4¢ ; wing, 6; tatl, 7+; tarsi, 12.

L’ Aragari a double ceinture, Le Vaill. Ois. de Parad., tom. ii. p. 32. pl. 11.
Pteroglossus pecilosternus, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part XT. p. 147.—Bonap. Consp.

Gen. Av., p. 94, Pteroglossus, sp. 14.

 

In the account of Pteroglossus pluricinctus, given in the first edition of this work, I suggested that I had never
seen a specimen answering to Le Vaillant’s dragari a double ceinture, ventured an opinion that it was
quite distinct from the Preroglossus Aracari, with which Le Vaillant considered it identical, and that it was
probably an accidental variety of my P. pluricinctus. Since that period I have received many examples from
Peru, according most closely with Le Vaillant’s figure and description, and I can now confidently affirm that
it is not only quite distinct from P. dracari, but also from P. pluricinetus. It is very nearly allied to the
latter, but differs in having the second black band which crosses the breast of that species replaced by one
of bright blood-red, and in the yellow of the under surface being less stained with red: here then we have
one of Le Vaillant’s hitherto doubtful species identified ; and had that naturalist given the bird an appellation
instead of referring it to the common species, I should have had much pleasure in adopting his name instead
of proposing one inyself.

The native habitat of this fine bird are the forests clothing the inner dip of the Peruvian and Columbian
Andes. Strings of bills of this species, which had apparently been prepared as personal decorations by the
natives, are occasionally sent from Popayan, whence I infer that the bird is very numerous in that part
of the country.

It may be supposed by some that the present bird is merely a local variety of P. plurieinctus, and such may
possibly be the case; but I must remark that all the examples from the localities above-mentioned resemble
the figure here given, while those from the Upper Amazon and the Rio Negro as closely agree with P. plu-
ricinctus : of course it becomes necessary in a monograph to give a figure of a bird exhibiting so marked a
difference.

The figure is of the natural size.