RAMPHASTOS CULMINATUS. 
Culminated Toucan. 
Specific Character. 
Ramph. rostro nigro, culmine fascidque basali stramineis : ater ; guld pectoreque alhis; fascid 
angustd pectorali tectricihusque caudce h^erioribus coccineis ; uropygii plumis sulphureis in 
aurantium ad apices transeuntibus. 
Beak blade, with a broad line of pale straw yellow along the whole length of the culmen, from 
which a basal belt of the same colour encircles both mandibles; throat and chest white 
bounded by a narrow pectoral band of crimson, which is also the colour of the under 
tail-coverts; feathers of the uropygium brimstone yellow, passing olF into fiery orange at 
their tips ; remainder of the plumage black. 
1 otal length, from 18 to 20 inches; bill, 4 to 5, breadth, scarcely 1; wing, 8t to 9; tail, 6i 
to 7 } tarsus, 2. 
Ramphastos cidminatiis. Gould, Proceedings of the Zool. Soc., Parti, p. 70. 
It is now several years since I first received this fine species, which I had always been led to confound with the 
Ramphastos Cumeri of Wagler. A more minute examination of its characters, however, has convinced me 
that the present bird is essentially different, particularly in the formation of its mandibles, having them 
invariably shorter and more incurved, with the upper one compressed laterally so as to present a narrow 
culmen bounded by a furrow on each side running its whole length ; a character very different to that of 
R. Cumeri, the upper mandible of which is regularly swollen on its sides, of great length, and gradually drawn 
out to a point. With the exception of the bird just referred to, it is impossible to confound the pi-esent with 
any other known species. 
The Ramphastos culminatus is a rare bird in the collections of Europe : a fine example graces the museum 
of Lord Stanley ; another—in all probability a female, the stature being inferior, and the characters alluded 
to less pi’ominent—is in the museum of the Zoological Society of London. 
The species was received from Mexico, to which country and the Spanish Main its habitat is in all 
probability restricted. 
