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Few birds are more beautifully adorned than the male trogon. The head is of a bright yellow; the upper surface of the body, with the chest, being of a rich, glossy green; while the whole under surface is a bright scarlet. The throat and ear-coverts are black, and a white band of a crescent shape surrounds the throat. The wings are nearly entirely black.
And now the trogon fairly fell off the branch, seizing the insect almost before the tone died away. Swallowing it with considerable difficulty, the harmony was taken up again, a bit throaty for a few notes.
The tail is partly black, the two central feathers being green, tipped with black. The females and young males differ greatly, but their plumage is still very handsome. The resplendent trogon is a native of Mexico, and, like all its congeners, is fond of hiding its beauty in the dark glades of the rich tropical forests.
It would be tedious if I were to go on describing the almost endless varieties of birds we shot, glowing though they were with rainbow colours, and to keep repeating how we skinned and preserved this sun-bird, that pitta, or trogon, or lovely rose-tinted dove.
Then there came a splash of fruit falling around us, announcing that birds were feeding overhead; and looking up, we discovered flocks of parakeets, or bright blue chatterers, or pompadours having delicate white wings and claret-coloured plumage. Again, with a whir a trogon on the wing would seize some fruit, or a clumsy toucan would make the branches shake as he alighted above our heads.
A yellow-bellied trogon came quite close, and sat as trogons do, very straight and stiff like a poorly mounted bird, watching passing flycatchers and me and the glimpses of sky. At first he rolled his little cuckoo-like notes, and his brown mate swooped up, saw me, shifted a few feet farther off and perched full of curiosity, craning her neck and looking first with one eye, then the other.
One may walk a whole day and not see more than two or three species of either. In birds there is the same difference. In most parts of tropical America we may always find some species of woodpecker tanager, bush shrike, chatterer, trogon, toucan, cuckoo, and tyrant-flycatcher; and a few days' active search will produce more variety than can be here met with in as many months.
"Because we have shot the only trogon in the district, and we are wasting time here." "Nonsense," I said; "there are plenty more." "If we could find them," he replied wearily.
They have straight, long, pointed bills, with a keel on the upper mandible. Some species have only three toes, while others possess the usual number of four. They live on insects, but in many respects resemble the trogon; being even still less disposed to fly than they are.
Another species, called by the natives the curucua grande, has a soft, golden green plumage, a red breast, and an orange-coloured beak. In the Gapo territory a yellow-bellied trogon, with a back of a brilliant metallic green colour, and a breast of steel-blue, is found. The trogon melanurus is remarkable for the beauty of its plumage, having a glossy green back and rose-coloured breast.
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