480 TROGONIDE. 
Suborder COCCYGES HETERODACTYL. 
Fam. TROGONIDA. 
Trogonide, Gould, Mon. Trog. ed. 2 (1858-1875) ; Ogilvie-Grant, Cat. Birds, Brit. Mus. xvii. 
pp- 429 et seq. (1892). 
This remarkable family is well represented in Central America and Mexico ; for of 
the known species, numbering in all about fifty, sixteen occur within our limits, and 
of these not more than four pass beyond our region into the northern parts of South 
America. But the forty-nine or fifty known species of Trogonide spread far beyond 
the limits of America, for three occur in tropical Africa and eighteen in the eastern 
parts of tropical Asia and the great islands of Java, Sumatra, and Borneo. We thus 
have thirty-one or thirty-two species belonging to the New World, at least half of them 
Central American. : 
The American genera are distinguished from those of the Old World. They are :— 
Pharomacrus with four species, one Central American ; Zuptilotis with one exclusively 
Mexican species; Timetotrogon and Prionotelus with one Hispaniolan and one Cuban 
species respectively; and, lastly, Trogon with twenty-four species, of which fourteen 
occur within our limits, Africa has Hapaloderma with three species to itself, and South- 
eastern Asia and its islands Harpactes with eleven species and Harpalarpactes with two 
species. An interesting and suggestive fact concerning the former distribution of the 
Trogonide is the discovery of fossil remains of a species ascribed to Trogon in the miocene 
beds of Allier in France, described by Prof. A. Milne-Edwards as Trogon gallicus (Ois. 
Foss. de la France, ii. p. 395). These remains show that the family had a much wider 
distribution in these early times, and was spread over a much less broken area. Since 
then species have disappeared from large districts and the remainder left in the 
isolated countries in which we now find them. 
Trogons are inhabitants of more or less heavily forested districts, but are by no means 
restricted to the lowlying hotter country—Pharomacrus, Euptilotis, and several species 
of Trogon frequenting mountain-ranges to a height of at least 8000 or 9000 feet. 
The members of the family Trogonide, being remarkably brilliant in the colours of 
their plumage, early attracted the attention of Gould, and a monograph of it, finished 
in 1838, formed the second of his great monographic works. A second edition, but 
really a distinct volume, was commenced in 1858, and completed in 1875. Since then 
we have in vol. xvii. of the Catalogue of Birds of the British Museum a complete 
account of the Trogons in that institution from the pen of Mr. Ogilvie-Grant. As this 
volume contains lists of nearly the whole of the specimens coliected by us for this work, 
it has been of great use to us in preparing our account of the family which follows. 
