Family Rarnphastidce. 189 
plumage, varying in many instances only by a difference in the 
distribution of the markings, required much discrimination to dis- 
tinguish what had been esteemed species ; and the brilliant colours 
of the bill, equully varied, and as closely allied in their distribu- 
tion, and fading immediately after death, rendered accurate and 
carefully coloured plates the only way to preserve a similitude of the 
original tints. Our illustrations were contained in the works of Vail- 
lant and Vieillot, both not easily procured, or they were to be found 
among the scattered plates of other ornithologists. Wagler,* in 1827, 
published the first part of his Systema Avium, describing twelve 
species of Ramphaftos and fourteen Pleroglossi, and in general his 
descriptions are characterized by great correctness. They are the 
latest, and were looked upon as the best and most authentic. In the 
monograph before us, some of that naturalist's species are made sy- 
nonymous with those of the older writers, and with Mr Gould's fi- 
gures, while one or two are left apparently unaccounted for. This 
it will now be our endeavour as far as possible to point out, and we 
suspect that ere long another fasciculus will be required for the re- 
presentation of additional birds. 
In the true Toucans (Ramphastos,} the colours of the plumage are 
invariably black, white, red, or yellow, the throat and upper part of the 
breast, the rump and under tail coverts exhibiting the latter colours, 
while the body, wings, and tail are always dark. Ornithologists 
have taken their divisions from these ; Wagler makes two, with the 
breast white, or with the breast yellow ; Mr Gould separates them 
into four, A. B. C. D., combining with the colours of the breast those 
of the tail and coverts ; but in a group so limited, the first is perhaps 
sufficient for every artificial purpose, and his third division C, is 
only characterized by a species, which is confessedly intermediate be- 
tween it and the fourth or D. In the first four species of the mono- 
graph we see a great alliance in colour ; they are all white, or nearly 
white-breasted, banded beneath narrowly with red, and the distin- 
guishing marks are seen on the rump and tail coverts by yellow or 
red, and in the form and colour of the bill. R. culminalus, Gould, 
is given as undescribed ; it has nothing near it in Wagler, except R. 
Cumerii, Wagl. but seems at once distinguished from it, by the 
great size of the bill, its more gradual bend, and different form. R. 
citreopigeus, Gould, from the collection of Mr Swainson, seems a well 
* This excellent ornithologist met with an untimely death in 1833, while on 
a shooting excursion near Munich : his gun exploded with fatal effect, while he 
was in the act of passing through a hedge Govld's Monograph. 
