988 TROGON 



and when this is the case they are usually barred ladder-like with 

 white and black. ^ According to Gould, they are larger and more 

 pointed in the young than in the old, and grow squarer and have 

 the white bands narrower at each succeeding moult. He also 

 asserts that in the species which have the wing-coverts freckled, 

 the freckling becomes finer with age. So far as has been observed, 

 the nidification of these bii"ds is in holes of trees, wherein are laid 

 without any bedding two roundish eggs, generally white, but cer- 

 tainly in one species (Quezal) tinted with bluish-green. 



The Trogons form a very well-marked Family, belonging to the 

 multifarious group here treated as PiCARl^E ; but, instead of being 

 (so far as is known) like all the rest of them and, as Prof. Huxley 

 believed, " desmognathous," they have been shewn by W. A. 

 Forbes {Proc. Zool. Soc. 1881, p. 836) to be " schizognathous " — 

 thus demonstrating, in the words of the latter, "that the structure 

 of the palate has not that unique and peculiar significance that 

 has been claimed for it in the classification of birds." Perhaps the 

 explanation of this anomaly may lie in the fact that the Trogons 

 are a very old form. The remains of one, T. gallicus, have been 

 recognized by Prof. A. Milne-Edwards (Ois. foss. de la France, ii. p, 

 395, pi. 177,"^ figs. 18-22) from the Miocene of the Allier, and it 

 may not be too much to suppose that the schizognathous structure 

 was more ancient than the desmognathous {cf. supra, p. 878, note). 

 Again too this fortunate discovery seems to account for the re- 

 markable distribution of the Trogons at the present day. While 

 they chiefly abound, and have developed their climax of magnifi- 

 cence, in the tropical parts of the New World, they yet occur in 

 the tropical parts of the Old. The species now inhabiting Africa, 

 forming the group Hapaloderma, are clearly allied to those of the 

 Neotropical Trogon, and the difference between the Asiatic forms, if 

 somewhat greater, is still comparatively slight. It is plain then 

 that the Trogons are an exceptionally persistent type ; indeed in 

 the whole Class few similar instances occur and perhaps none that 

 can be called parallel. The extreme development of the type in 

 the New World just noticed also furnishes another hint. While 

 in some of the American Trogons (Pharomacrus, for instance) the 

 plumage of the females is not very much less beautiful than that 

 of the males, there are others in which the hen -birds retain what 

 may be fairly deemed a more ancient livery, while the cocks flaunt 

 in brilliant attire. Now the plumage of both sexes in all but two 

 of the Asiatic Trogons resembles rather that of the young and of those 

 females of the American species which are modestly clothed. The 

 inference from this fact would seem to be that the general colora- 



^ lu the Trogon of Cuba, Prionotelus, they are most curiously scooped out, 

 as it were, at the extremity, and the lateral pointed ends diverge in a way 

 almost unique among birds. 



