COPPERY-TAILED TROGOK 107 



garbed male and his more modest mate repeatedly allowed me to 

 walk up to within about 20 feet of them before they would fly a 

 short distance and then allow me to approach them again. Each time 

 they both called their hen-turkey-like notes, kum-kum-kum^ ever 

 answering my squeeches of a like count and inflection. That this 

 bird breeds in the vicinity there is little doubt, but we did not spend 

 time seeking its home, as Arizona has wisely put it on the per- 

 manently protected list, and in consequence this mountain-loving 

 species is becoming common again in its densely tangled retreats." 

 A. J. van Kossem (1936) adds the following news: 



Regardless of its status in former years, this trogon may now be counted 

 a fairly common summer visitant in the Santa Ritas. Possibly it has always 

 been more numerous than was supposed, for one of the rangers, who has been 

 stationed for many years in the Santa Ritas, knew the bird well and told me 

 of having seen as many as five or six feeding together at a single patch of 

 mauzanita. At any rate there were several pairs in Madera Canon in the 

 summers of 1931 and 1932. ♦ * ♦ 



On June 27 [1931], Mr. Gorsuch and I saw or heard eight birds between the 

 forks of the caiion at 6000 feet, and Littleshot Cabin at 7000. On that date a 

 fully adult male was collected by Mr. Gorsuch for the museum at the University 

 of Arizona. On June 28, a very young trogon, about two-thirds grown and 

 evidently just out of the nest, was shot, quite unintentionally, in a patch of 

 oaks at 6000 feet. 



At least two pairs were noted on May 30, 1931; "the association 

 in which they were noted was the oak-sycamore growth near the 

 juncture of Upper Sonoran and Transition. Two males (both of 

 which presumably had mates) were heard in the left (north) fork — 

 one at 7000, the other at 8000 feet altitude. These altitudes are in 

 the pine-oak association in the Transition Zone." 



Col. A. J. Grayson (Lawrence, 1874) says that, in western Mexico, 

 "it is to be met with only in the dark forests of the tierra caliente" 



Nesting. — Colonel Grayson says that "it breeds in the hollows of 

 trees like the parrots." According to Mrs. Bailey (1928), the nest 

 is "reported in cavities in large trees, generally in large deserted 

 woodpecker holes, but also in holes in banks." There are ten sets of 

 eggs of the coppery-tailed trogon in the Thayer collection in Cam- 

 bridge, all collected by, or for, Frank B. Armstrong near Ciudad 

 Victoria, Tamaulipas, Mexico, between March 29 and April 27, 1908. 

 If these dates are all correctly recorded, these trogons must breed 

 very plentifully in that region, or Mr. Armstrong's collectors must 

 have been very industrious. There are a number of sets in other 

 collections from the same locality, all taken by the same collectors. 

 These eggs were all taken from nests in holes in trees, apparently 

 natural cavities; the holes were at various heights, ranging from 

 12 to 40 feet above the ground; some of the trees were in a river 

 bottom and others in "big woods near town." The nests were made 



