RAMPHASTOS VITELLINUS, m

Sulphur and White-breasted Toucan.

SpectFic CHARACTER.

Ramph. rostro nigro ; fascia basali cceruleo postice linea negra cincta ; pectore aurantiaco-flavo
wn album ad latera et anticé transeunte ; tectricibus caude superioribus et infertoribus

cocc2ne?s.

General plumage black ; breast orange, gradually blending with the white of the cheeks, chin,
and sides of the neck; across the chest, immediately below the orange, a broad crescentic
mark of deep blood-red ; the upper and under tail-coverts are also blood-red; bill black,

with the exception of a broad band of blue near the base and a stripe of the same hue

uniting with it on the base of the culmen; orbits greenish blue ; feet blue.

 

Total length, 193 inches ; Jz//, 43 ; wing, 73; tail, 7; tarsi, 13.

Le Prgnan-coin, ou Toucan a gorge jaune, Levaill. Hist. Nat. des Ois. de Parad., tom. ii.

p 195 pl. 7:
ae Ramphastos vitellinus, lll_—Swains. Zool. Ill., vol. i. pl. 56.—Licht. Verz. der Doubl., poe
3 No. 22..—Gould, Mon. of Ramph., pl. 9.—Ib. Sturm’s Edit., pl. .—Gray and

Mitch. Gen. of Birds, vol. i. p. 403, Ramphastos, sp. 9.—Bonap. Consp. Gen.
Ay., p. 95, Ramphastos, sp. 11.—Less. ‘Traité d’'Orn., p. 173, Ramphastos, sp. 12.
—Wagl. Syst. Av., Ramphastos, sp. 12.

 

Tuts fine species, like the Ramphastos Ariel, has the upper and under tail-coverts scarlet; and this so

 

constant, that in the hundreds of specimens I have seen no indication of a yellow or orange hue. has been
observable : I mention this fact, because the late Mr. John Natterer once obtained a specimen which he
considered to be referable to this species with the tail-coverts orange, but which I consider to have been
an accidental variety or a distinct species. The native habitat of this bird is Guiana, Cayenne, I believe the
Island of Trinidad, and the banks of the Amazon generally. Mr. Natterer also found it on the banks
of the Rio Branco below the Sierra Caraman under the second degree of north latitude, and still further
south near Barra on the Rio Negro. Specimens from Guiana are somewhat larger in size, have stronger

i a re a deeper ti ‘e diffused than those fron
bills, and have the orange colouring of the breast of a Beoper tint and more diffusec us e 1
the other localities ; they cannot, however, be regarded as distinct, but simply as a local variety.

The figures are of the natural size.