ORNITHOLOGY. 



The Jacamars constitute a tribe of birds distinguished for the 

 rich metallic lustre of their plumage. The species are few in number 

 and all, so far as we are acquainted with them, peculiar to South 

 America, except the green Jacamar, which is found in Guinea. The 

 species of this genus, the Galbula of Latham, are Viridis, Grandis, 

 Paradisea and Albirostris, the last of which is the subject of our 

 present consideration. 



Galbula Albirostris is a bird of moderate size, with much the 

 aspect of a king's-fisher. Its length is six inches and a half. The 

 most conspicuous character of the species consists in the magnitude 

 and colour of the bill, which is of great length and of a white colour, 

 except the anterior part of the upper mandible, which is distinctly 

 black to the tip.* The colour of the head, neck, back, wings and 

 tail is a rich glossy green, changeable to brown, and glossed with a 

 brassy or metallic lustre. The quill feathers and outer feathers of 

 the tail brown. There is a small triangular spot of white extending 

 from the eye towards the base of the bill : the chin is dark : the 

 throat marked with a large triangular spot of white. Body beneath 

 orange, darkest and inclining to chesnut on the breast ; the legs pale 

 yellowish. 



* This does not accord with the description of the bird as it appears in 

 Dr. Latham's Index Ornithologicus : that authority informs us the bill which 

 is shorter than in the other birds of the same genus, is white with the base 

 blackish. " Rostrum album, brevius quam in congeneribus, basi nigricans." 

 In our bird, instead of the base, it is the tip or extreme half of the upper 

 mandible that is black ; and it is the same also in the example of the 

 species preserved in the French Museum, This character is expressed in the 

 figure of the bird by Vieillot, and is in particular pointed out in the general 

 description by which that figure is accompanied: "les mandibles sont 

 blanches, excepte le boute de la sup6rieure qui est noir." — Hist, des Jaca- 

 mars, p. 4. 



