RAMPHASTOS BREVICARINATUS, Gould . 
Short-billed Toucan. 
Specific Character. 
Ramph. rostro brevi, compresso, fascia, august,a nigra basali circurndato, apice sanguineo; man- 
dihuld superiore viridi, culmine maculdque utrinque aura,ntio-jiavis; gutture pectoreque 
luteis , hoc torque sanguineo infra succincto. 
± 
General plumage black with a pale wash of rufous at the back of the neck, and a gloss of green 
on the back, wings, abdomen and tail; upper tail-coverts white ; under tail-coverts blood- 
red ; cheeks, throat and breast yellow, bounded below with a band of scarlet; bill light 
green, passing into deep red on the tips of both mandibles; along each side of the upper 
mandible an oblong patch of reddish orange; both mandibles bounded at the base with a 
narrow line of black, and both marked near the tomiae with indistinct transverse rays of 
black ; orbits verditer-green, passing into yellow on their outer margin ; feet blue, tinged 
with lilac on their under surface. 
Total length, 14 inches; bill, 4i; wing, 7; tail, 6; tarsi, 11. 
From the time I commenced the study of the various members of this group of birds, I have always felt 
convinced that the Mexican Keel-hilled Toucans constituted more than a single species; for upon examining 
the fine collection of the Prince Massena at Paris, while engaged on the first edition of this work, I found 
two fully adult specimens differing considerably in all their admeasurements, and especially in the length of 
the hill, which in one was fully a third longer than that of the other, while there was no marked difference 
in their depth ; in the smaller bird the yellow of the breast was separated from the black of the under 
surface by a well-defined and somewhat broad band of blood-red, of which there was either a very slight 
or no trace in the larger one; subsequently I saw other examples in some of the continental museums, 
but was undecided as to the propriety of characterizing them as distinct; the British Museum, however, 
having been lately enriched with specimens of the short-billed species sent direct from the western side 
of the isthmus of Panama, all of which are alike in admeasurement, and have well-defined pectoral scarlet 
bands, I have considered it only right to define and give a representation of the short-billed bird, leaving it 
for future explorers to determine whether it be really distinct or only a local variety. Its specific characters 
are a short and deep bill, whence the name brevicarhiatus, accompanied by a bright scarlet band on the 
chest. My attention has been lately called to a third variety or species, intermediate between the two, but 
from a different locality—New Grenada ; the first instance that has come under my notice of a Keel-billed 
Toucan being found south of the Isthmus of Panama. 
The collection of the Prince Massena above alluded to is now in the Museum at Philadelphia; the 
American ornithologists will therefore have an opportunity of investigating the subject, and of giving an 
opinion as to the specific value of Ramphastos brecicarinatus. 
The figures are of the natural size. 
