:::::::::C THE HOT LANDS OF THE PACIFIC ;*::::::::: 



These are birds of the true tropics, comparable with 

 no Northern family. Classed between the cuckoos and 

 kingfishers, they resemble neither in appearance. The 

 hollow curvature of the wing-feathers of a Bob-White 

 is a characteristic so exaggerated in a trogon that the 

 primaries wrap close about the body, rather like the 

 skinny, clutching fingers of a bat than like the feathers 

 of a bird's wing. Its feet and legs, feathered down to 

 the very toes, are so tiny, that when the bird is perch- 

 ing, they are never visible. The Yellow-bellied Trogon 

 is more silent than its congener, the Coppery-tailed, 

 which we saw higher up in the mountains. Its common 

 utterance is a soft cluck ! When suddenly alarmed, it 

 utters a sharp, rolling cr-cr-cr-cr-ck ! which, softened 

 and mellowed, is the ordinary call-note of the Coppery- 

 tailed species. 



Trogons always sit very upright on the branch, their 

 tails hanging straight downward, but jerked violently 

 forward at every cluck ! The tail-feathers are so abruptly 

 truncated that one almost wonders if these birds have 

 not learned something of the Motmot's habits ! 



As I w^as watching a trogon one day, something drew 

 my eyes aside to a small vista among the leaves, hardly 

 four feet from my face, and there, framed in the clear 

 opening, almost within reach of my hand, sat an ex- 

 quisite Motmot, his pendulum rackets swinging from 

 side to side — beating time to his mood. His soft red 

 eyes, glowing from the centre of his great head, lent 



«# 303 ^ 



