DETAILED CHARACTERS 
OF 
SOME SPECIES OF PLANTAIN EATERS, MUSOPHAOIDJE * 
By Dn. EDOUARD RUPPELL, 
Trankfort on the Maine. 
Translated from the Arcliiv fur Naturgcschichte, vol. xvii. part i. page 34fi, by H. J April 1862. 
Although liitherto only a few species of Plantain Eaters have been 
described and figured, and although each of them is easily distin- 
guished by well defined characters, yet in the enumeration of them 
in Bonaparte’s latest publication, “ Conspectus Gencrum Avium,” 
Leyden, 1850, fresh errors have crept . in, whicli I feel myself bound 
to correct, as the rich materials of the Scnckenburg Museum sup- 
plies me with the best opportunity for doing so. These corrections 
refer to Cuvier’s Turacus persa , the Cuculus persa of Linnaeus, un- 
der whicli appellation Bonaparte has, according to my view, united 
three very different birds, although he had already admitted the 
separation of a fourth species, Turacus albocr {status, which previ- 
ously was also referred to Turacus persa. Waglcr distinguished it 
(1827) long before Strickland, under the denomination, Spelectos 
corythaix , consequently this bird must bear the specific name of 
Turacus corythaix . 
IIow Bonaparte happened to enumerate under the synonyms of 
Turacus persa , that figured by Jardine and Selby in their Illustra- 
tions of Ornithology, pi. 122, as Corythaix buffonii (Vieillot), is 
very surprising, when a mere comparison of this figure, or of the 
head of one which Swainson published in vol. i. pi. 21, of his Birds 
• A correction of a paper written by myself upon the same subject, and published 
in the 9th Bericht dcr Bnsler Natnrforschenden ftesellschaft (1851). 
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