108 BULLETIN 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



of various materials, such as hay, straw, trash, moss, wool, down, 

 feathers, vines, and thistledown. 



Eggs. — The coppery-tailed trogon laj^s ordinarily three or four 

 eggs but probably sometimes only two. These are rounded-ovate to 

 nearly oval in shape; and the shell is smooth but not glossy. The 

 color is dull white or faintly bluish white and entirely unmarked. 

 The measurements of 55 eggs average 28.50 by 23.18 millimeters; 

 the eggs showing the four extremes measure 30.7 by 24.6, 29 by 25, 

 26 by 22.8, and 29.5 by 22.1 millimeters. 



Plunvages. — I have not seen anj'' nestlings or very young birds. 

 Ridgway (1911) gives very full and accurate descriptions of all the 

 known plumages of both sexes of this trogon ; but his accounts are 

 too long to be quoted in full here, so I shall mention only the most 

 conspicuous features, of the different plumages, by which the reader 

 may recognize them. 



In the Juvenal plumage, in July, the sexes are alike, or nearly so, 

 and closely resemble, on the upper parts, the adult female, except 

 that the central pair of tail feathers have very narrow black tips, 

 instead of broad ones; the next three pairs of rectrices are black, and 

 the two lateral pairs are mostly white, barred with black, except for 

 a large terminal white area; the lesser, median, and to a lesser degree 

 the greater wing coverts are tipped with a large spot of pale buff 

 or buffy white, bordered with black; chin and throat grayish brown 

 above a quite distinct white pectoral band ; below this band the under 

 parts are indistinctly barred, or mottled, with grayish brown and 

 grayish white. 



This unadulterated ju venal plumage is apparently worn through 

 the first summer and early fall; I have seen it in its purity in birds 

 collected at various dates between July 23 and September 20; but, 

 on the other hand, some specimens show the beginning of a molt be- 

 fore the end of August. During all the remainder of their first year, 

 young birds show more or less continuous progress toward maturity 

 by a gradual and irregular molt. At an early age, between August 

 and November, young males begin to show metallic green feathers 

 in the back and throat, and metallic blue feathers in the rump and 

 upper tail coverts; during winter and spring these metallic colors 

 gradually increase; and on the under parts, below the white band, 

 there is a gradual decrease in the brown and white and a correspond- 

 ing increase in the "geranium red" of the adult plumage. At the 

 same time, young females are acquiring more and more of the "peach 

 red" of the adult female on the posterior under parts. 



These transition plumages may be seen, in the series I have studied, 

 in birds collected in November, December, Febiniary, March, April, 

 May, June, and July, during all of which time the juvenal wings 

 and tail are retained. From this I infer that the annual molt occurs in 



