190 Mr Gould's Monograph of the 



marked species, distinguished by the lemon colour of the rump, and 

 the entirely black bill banded with blue at the base ; R. erythro- 

 rhynchus is known by the brilliant colour of its beak. Under this 

 bird Wagler's R. Levaillantii is placed, perhaps correctly. The latter 

 writer describes the bill of erythrorhynchus as " obscure purpurea- 

 rubra" of " Levaillantii," as laete aurantia ; in the figure it is brilliant 

 crimson, and we can easily reconcile the above descriptions to the 

 fading colours of dried skins ; a slight difference in size is the only 

 other distinction pointed out. R. osculans, Gould, from the Vienna 

 collection, is new, distinguished from the last by its yellow breast, 

 and from R. vitellinus by its differently coloured bill and yellow 

 rump. R. loco is a well known bird, but not very commonly brought 

 to this country. R. carinatus is also well-marked. R. Sivainsonii, 

 Gould, has R. ambiguus of Sw. Zool. Illustr. given as a synonym with 

 a ? but if the lower figure be compared, there can be little doubt of 

 their identity, the difference of marking in the bill, being very slight, 

 is all that is mentioned as separating them. R. dicolorus we have 

 always considered a well-marked bird, and one of the most common 

 in Brazil, and the R. lucai, Wag., which Mr Gould places as a sy- 

 nonym, had not been seen by Wagler when he made his descriptions. 

 The remaining two figures of our author, R. vilellinus and Ariel, Vi- 

 gors, are very closely allied, and among their synonymy is unnecessarily 

 entangled, that of the true R. tucanus of Linn. This bird is not known 

 at all to present ornithologists. By Linnaeus it is described " crisso 

 uropygioque flavis," and we can see no reason to doubt the existence 

 of a species with such a distribution of colours, particularly as we see 

 so much alliance among the others. We should be inclined, therefore, 

 to strike out tucanus altogether as a synomym to these birds, and 

 either retain the species on the authority of Linnaeus, or place it in 

 the list of nominal ones until a specimen occurs. R. callorhinchus, 

 Wagl. seems unnoticed in the monograph. 



The Pteroglossi of Illig. exhibiting nearly an equal disproportion 

 of bill, are marked by a greater variation of tints, and the tail is 

 longer and cuneated ; green is the prevailing colour in these birds ; 

 red and yellow still continue to mark the lower parts, the rump and 

 crissum, but they are not distributed with so much regularity, and 

 sometimes occur in large patches ; white is wanting entirely. Wag- 

 ler describes twelve species, all which are figured by Gould, with 

 the exception of P. Aldrovandi, a bird which has got into our 

 systems and histories, but for which we do not seem to have any good 

 authority at the present day. To these eleven, another eleven spe- 



