106 BULLETIN 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Order TROGONIPORMES 

 Family TROGONIDAE : Trogons 



TROGON AMBIGUUS AMBIGUUS Gould 

 COPPERY-TAILED TROGON 



HABITS 



This gorgeous Mexican species brings color from the Tropics, all 

 too rarely, across our borders in extreme southern Texas and southern 

 Arizona. Ever since Lieutenant Benson shot an immature male in 

 the Huachuca Mountains on August 24, 1885, it has been known to 

 occur there and in other neighboring localities in Arizona as one of 

 our rarest birds. Specimens have been taken there under circum- 

 stances that would indicate that sometime its nest will be found within 

 our borders. An adult female was shot by F. H. Fowler (1903) in the 

 Huachucas during August 1892. Major Bendire (1895) writes: "An- 

 other adult female, which evidently had a nest close by, was obtained 

 by Dr. Edgar A. Mearns, United States Army, on June 23, 1892, on 

 the east side of the San Luis Mountains, close to the Mexican bound- 

 ary line. The long tail feathers in this specimen are much worn and 

 abraded, and look as if the bird had passed considerable time in very 

 limited quarters. Its mate was also seen, but not secured. Judging 

 from the character of the country this species inhabits in southern 

 Arizona, that is pine forest regions, it is probably only a straggler 

 in the lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas, and does not breed there." 



Mrs. Florence M. Bailey (1923) reports that A. B. Howell dis- 

 covered a pair of these trogons in the Santa Rita Mountains in south- 

 ern Arizona in 1918, of which he writes : "While wrapping two birds 

 which I had shot at 6,000 feet in a canyon, on August 4, I looked up 

 and saw a pair of these birds watching me from live oak branches at 

 perhaps a hundred yards. I had an unobstructed view of their bright 

 underparts and characteristic form and flight, and identification was 

 sure. They were very 'wise,' and as I carefully approached, they as 

 slowly receded, flying from oak to oak until they separated and I lost 

 them in the denser growth. The trees were almost entirely live oaks 

 here with a very occasional pine." 



Herbert W. Brandt has sent me the following notes on the status of 

 this beautiful bird on the western slopes of the Huachuca Mountains, 

 Ariz.: "The turkeylike call of this rare, semitropical visitor is a 

 common bird note in Sunnyside Canyon and in the lower reaches of 

 Bear Canyon. There are at least three pairs of birds in each of 

 these valleys; and in the morning they noisily call back and forth 

 to one another. These valley floors are usually densely wooded and 

 would make this bird difficult to study were it not for its inquisitive 

 nature, for it is usually easily lured by the 'squeech.' One lavishly 



