RAMPHASTOS OSCULANS, Gould.

Osculant Toucan.

Speciric CHARACTER.

Ramph. rostro aterrimo, culmine fascidque nigra basali flavis ; pectore in medio aurantiaco, latera

versus in flavescentem transeunte, gula regioneque parotica albis ; lined pectus posticé

cingenté crissogue cocciners ; uropygio sulphureo in aurantiacum transeunte.

General plumage jet-black ; breast orange-yellow in the centre, fading off into light yellow,
which again is lost in the pure white of the throat, ear-coverts, and sides of the neck; band
across the breast and under tail-coverts deep blood-red ;_ upper tail-coverts sulphur-yellow
at the base, and fine orange on their apical half; bill black, with the culmen, the tip of the
lower mandible, and a broad basal band fine greenish yellow, the latter washed with
greenish blue towards the cutting edge of the upper and on the lower mandible ; at the
base of the bill a narrow line of black; orbits light greenish blue, becoming of a deeper
or cobalt-blue towards the eye; eyelids dark bluish grey ; outer edge of the irides bluish
green, their inner edge dark greenish brown; tarsi and feet very rich light blue in front,
and of a lilac hue behind.

Total length, 19 inches ; bedl, 53; wing, 73; tail, 6+; tarsi, 14.

Ramphastos osculans, Gould in Proe. of Zool. Soc., Part IIL. p. 156.—Ib. Mon. of Ramph.,
pl. 5—Gray and Mitch. Gen. of Birds, vol. ii. p. 403, Ramphastos, sp. 14.—
Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av., p. 92, Ramphastos, sp. 6.

 

Ar the time I published the First Edition of this work, the single specimen contained in the Imperial
Museum at Vienna, from which I took my figure, was, I believe, the only one that had been sent to Europe,
and it is even now a rare bird in our collections. This may be due to the circumstance of its habitat being
a distant and remote part of South America, rarely visited by Europeans. Mr. John Natterer, to whom
I am indebted for a knowledge of its soft parts, killed it on the river Madeira; Mr. Wallace has sent it
from the Rio Negro; and there is a specimen in the Museum of the Zoological Society of London, which
was brought to this country from the interior of Guiana by Sir Robert Schomburgk.

It may be regarded as, without exception, one of the loveliest of the Ramphasti, vieing as it does in the
variety of its colours with all the other members of the group. The white feathers at the side of the neck
are dense, and of a pure white; the orange-yellow wash on the centre of the breast is of the most lovely
tint imaginable ; the tail-coverts too are of a beautiful sulphur-yellow at the base, passing into an equally
beautiful orange on their apical half; and the general plumage is of the blackest jet. In the colouring of
its breast it resembles R. vitel/inus, but it differs from that species in the broad culmenal mark of yellow
and in its orange-coloured upper tail-coverts. In the general colouring of the bill it resembles 2. culminatus,
but it differs from that bird in having the breast orange: again, it is nearly allied to 2. Cuvier? and R.
citreolemus, but is readily distinguished from both those species by its smaller size, and by the rich
colouring of its breast.

I find some slight variety in different specimens as to the amount of the scarlet on the breast: in some it
assumes the form of a band, while in others it forms a large gorget-like mark, as in R. vitellinus: the orbits
are perhaps denuded to a larger extent than in any other species; and in most of the specimens I have seen
the culmen is very broad and much flattened, and moreover bulges out laterally so as to form a decided
ridge on each side; but I have one example in which the bulging is not so decided, and the culmen is
narrower and regularly arched. I do not, however, consider this difference to be indicative of more than a
local variety.

The figures are of the natural size.