RAMPHASTOS CULMINATUS.

Culminated Toucan.

Speciric CHARACTER.

Ramph. rostro nigro, culmine fascidque basali straminets : ater ; gula pectoreque albis; fascia
angusta pectoral tectricibusque caude inferioribus coccinets ; uropygu plumis sulphureis in

aurantiwm ad apices transeuntibus.

Beak black, with a broad line of pale straw yellow along the whole length of the culmen, from
which a basal belt of the same colour encircles both mandibles; throat and chest white
bounded by a narrow pectoral band of crimson, which is also the colour of the under
tail-coverts ; feathers of the uropygium brimstone yellow, passing off into fiery orange at
their tips ; remainder of the plumage black.

Total length, from 18 to 20 inches; dil, 4 to 5, breadth, scarcely 1; wing, 8% to 9; taal, OF

to 7; tarsus, 2.

Ramphastos culminatus. Gould, Proceedings of the Zool. Soc., Part I. p. 70.

Ir is now several years since I first received this fine species, which I had always been led to confound with the
Ramphastos Cuviert of Wagler. A more minute examination of its characters, however, has convinced me
that the present bird is essentially different, particularly in the formation of its mandibles, having them
invariably shorter and more incurved, with the upper one compressed laterally so as to present a narrow
culmen bounded by a furrow on each side running its whole length; a character very different to that of
R. Cuvieri, the upper mandible of which is regularly swollen on its sides, of great length, and gradually drawn
out to a point. With the exception of the bird just referred to, it is impossible to confound the present with
any other known species.

The Ramphastos culminatus is a rare bird in the collections of Europe: a fine example graces the museum
of Lord Stanley ; another—in all probability a female, the stature being inferior, and the characters alluded
to less prominent—is in the museum of the Zoological Society of London.

The species was received from Mexico, to which country and the Spanish Main its habitat is in all

probability restricted.