RAMPHASTOS OSCULANS 5 Gould. 
Osculant Toucan. 
Specific Character. 
Ramph. rostro aterrimo, culmine fasciaque nigra basali jlavis ; pectore in medio aurantiaco , latera 
versus in flavescentem transeunte, guld regioneque parotica albis; lined pectus postice 
cingente crissoque coccineis ; uropygio sulphureo in aurantiacum transeunte. 
General plumage jet-black ; breast orange-yellow in the centre, fading off into light yellow, 
which again is lost in the pure white of the throat, ear-coverts, and sides of the neck; band 
across the breast and under tail-coverts deep blood-red ; upper tail-coverts sulphur-yellow 
at the base, and fine orange on their apical half; bill black, with the culmen, the tip of the 
lower mandible, and a broad basal band fine greenish yellow, the latter washed with 
greenish blue towards the cutting edge of the upper and on the lower mandible ; at the 
base of the bill a narrow line of black; orbits light greenish blue, becoming of a deeper 
or cobalt-blue towards the eye; eyelids dark bluish grey; outer edge of the iricles bluish 
green, their inner edge dark greenish brown ; tarsi and feet very rich light blue in front, 
and of a lilac hue behind. 
Total length, 19 inches; bill, 5i ; wing, 7f; tail, 6? ; tarsi, li. 
Ramphastos osculans, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part III. p. 156.—lb. Mon. of Ramph., 
pi. 5.—Gray and Mitch. Gen. of Birds, vol. ii. p. 403, Ramphastos , sp. 14.— 
Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av., p. 92, Ramphastos, sp. 6. 
At the time I published the First Edition of this work, the single specimen contained in the Imperial 
Museum at Vienna, from which I took my figure, was, I believe, the only one that had been sent to Europe, 
and it is even now a rare bird in our collections. This may be due to the circumstance of its habitat being 
a distant and remote part of South America, rarely visited by Europeans. Mr. John Natterer, to whom 
I am indebted for a knowledge of its soft parts, killed it on the river Madeira; Mr. Wallace has sent it 
from the Rio Negro ; and there is a specimen in the Museum of the Zoological Society of London, which 
was brought to this country from the interior of Guiana by Sir Robert Schomburgk. 
It may be regarded as, without exception, one of the loveliest of the Ramphasti, vieing as it does in the 
variety of its colours with all the other members of the group. The white feathers at the side of the neck 
are dense, and of a pure white; the orange-yellow wash on the centre of the breast is of the most lovely 
tint imaginable; the tail-coverts too are of a beautiful sulphur-yellow at the base, passing into an equally 
beautiful orange on their apical half; and the general plumage is of the blackest jet. In the colouring of 
its breast it resembles R. vitellinus, but it differs from that species in the broad culmenal mark of yellow 
and in its orange-coloured upper tail-coverts. In the general colouring of the bill it resembles R. culminatus, 
but it differs from that bird in having the breast orange: again, it is nearly allied to R. Cuvier/ and H. 
citreolasmus, hut is readily distinguished from both those species by its smaller size, and by the rich 
colouring of its breast. 
I find some slight variety in different specimens as to the amount of the scarlet on the breast: in some it 
assumes the form of a band, while in others it forms a large gorget-like mark, as in Rvitellinus : the orbits 
are perhaps denuded to a larger extent than in any other species ; and in most of the specimens I have seen 
the culmen is very broad and much flattened, and moreover bulges out laterally so as to form a decided 
ridge on each side; but I have one example in which the bulging is not so decided, and the culmen is 
narrower and regularly arched. I do not, however, consider this difference to be indicative of more than a 
local variety. 
The figures are of the natural size. 
