RAMPHASTOS BREVICARINA TUS, Goud.

Short-billed Toucan.

SPECIFIC CHARACTER.

Ramph. rostro brevi, compresso, fascii, angusta nigra basali circumdato, apice

sanguineo ; man-
Lib la ys viride 5 A e
dibuld superiore viridi, culmine maculaque

utringue aurantio-flavis ; gutture pectoreque
luters, hoc torque sanguineo infra succincto.

General plumage black with a pale wash of rufous at the back of the neck, and a gloss of green
on the back, wings, abdomen and tail ; upper tail-coverts white ; under tail-coverts bec
red; cheeks, throat and breast yellow, bounded below with a band of scarlet ; bill light
green, passing into deep red on the tips of both mandibles; along each side of the upper
mandible an oblong patch of reddish orange; both mandibles bounded at the base with a
narrow line of black, and both marked near the tomiaz with indistinct transverse rays of
black ; orbits verditer-green, passing into yellow on their outer margin ; feet blue, tinged
with lilac on their under surface.

Total length, 14 inches; b7//, 44; wing, 7; tail, 6; tarsi, 1%.

 

From the time I commenced the study of the various members of this group of birds, I have always felt
convinced that the Mexican Keel-billed Toucans constituted more than a single species ; for upon examining
the fine collection of the Prince Massena at Paris, while engaged on the first edition of this work, I found
two fully adult specimens differing considerably in all their admeasurements, and especially in the length of
the bill, which in one was fully a third longer than that of the other, while there was no marked difference
in their depth ; in the smaller bird the yellow of the breast was separated from the black of the under
surface by a well-defined and somewhat broad band of blood-red, of which there was either a very slight
or no trace in the larger one; subsequently I saw other examples in some of the continental museums,
but was undecided as to the propriety of characterizing them as distinct ; the British Museum, however,
having been lately enriched with specimens of the short-billed species sent direct from the western side
of the isthmus of Panama, all of which are alike in admeasurement, and have well-defined pectoral scarlet
bands, I have considered it only right to define and give a representation of the short-billed bird, leaving it
for future explorers to determine whether it be really distinct or only a local variety. Its specific characters
are a short and deep bill, whence the name érevicarinatus, accompanied by a bright scarlet band on the
chest. My attention has been lately called to a third variety or species, intermediate between the two, but
from a different locality —New Grenada ; the first instance that has come under my notice of a Keel-billed
Toucan being found south of the Isthmus of Panama.

The pallecrion of the Prince Massena above alluded to is now in the Museum at Philadelphia; the
American ornithologists will therefore have an opportunity of investigating the subject, and of giving an
opinion as to the specific value of Ramphastos brevicarinatus.

The figures are of the natural size.

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