Trogon viridis, Linn. Syst. Nat. edit. 12. 1. p. 167. 3.
Trogon Cayanensis viridis. Briss. av. 4. p. 168. n. 2 t. 17.
Couroucou à ventre jaune. Buff. Ois. 6. p. 291. Pl. Enl. 195.
Trogon viridis: viridi-aureus subtus luteis, gula nigra, retricibus utrinque tribus extimis oblique et dentatim albis. Lath. Ind. Orn. t. 1. p. 199. 2.
Yellow-bellied Curucui. Lath. Gen. Syn. 2. p. 488. 2.
This curious and very elegant bird is about twelve inches in length; the bill an inch long and of a pale cinereous or ashen hue, and, like most other species of this remarkable genus, serrated along the margin. The legs are feathered to the toes, and with the toes and claws are of a pale brown.
The colour of the head and neck of this species is black, very richly glossed with blue, which appears, in different directions of the light, highly splendid upon its surface. Upon the crown of the head the blue verges into violet and purple, and in descending towards the neck becomes changeable into a fine green, glossed with gold; these brilliant hues appear also on the sides of the neck, and passing round as a kind of pectorial band forms in particular a rich zone of golden green upon the breast.
The pale ashen hue of the bill is singularly contrasted with the deep black and violet of the head and neck, and the sudden transition of the colours of the body is no less remarkable, the plumage in this part becoming abruptly of a fine yellow from the breast down to the thighs; these latter are black, but the vent feathers beyond are of a fine yellow, like the colour of the abdomen. The upper parts of the body are green glossed with yellowish and partaking of a golden lustre. The upper wing coverts and scapulars are dark fuscous, mottled with greyish; the quill feathers dark brown, quills from the base to the middle white. The tail is cuneated or wedge-formed, the middle feathers being longer than the outer ones. These feathers are most singularly contrasted with the rest, being of a fine dark green, glossed with gold, and at the tip black, while the three outer feathers on the contrary are white, and from the base downwards nearly to the tip very elegantly marked with oblique indented bars of black, leaving the tip of each feather immaculate; the inner one of these three exterior feathers are the same length as the dark ones, but the next outer feather is shorter, and the extreme exterior feather on each side shorter than the latter.
There is a variety of this bird in which the belly, instead of being yellow, is white; the whole bird is a trifle smaller than the example now before us, and may possibly prove hereafter to be the same species, in a less mature state of plumage. Buffon calls it Le Couroucou verd.