LIFE HISTORY OF THE QUETZAL! 
By ALEXANDER F. SKUTCH 
[With 4 plates] 
The New World, for all its wealth of feathered life, boasts no family 
of birds at once so large and so ornate as either the pheasants or the 
birds of paradise of the Old World. The trogons are perhaps the 
most gorgeous avian family that the Western Hemisphere possesses, 
although they are a group shared with the eastern world. Trogons 
display glittering metallic plummage in far larger expanses than any 
hummingbird, and the colors of the males are usually brilliant and 
contrasting. Most, however, are devoid of ornamental plumes. An 
exception is the quetzal, which in this superb family is easily first 
in splendor. It is certainly one of the half dozen or so most beautiful 
birds in the Americas, and even in this select group may deserve 
highest rank. 
Not only is the quetzal a magnificent bird, but it is also one of the 
most widely known. Save possibly the scarlet macaw, this was the 
first Central American bird of whose existence I became aware. Like 
many another boy, I collected postage stamps; and an ornate Guate- 
malan issue, with its quetzal in red and green, was considered a 
collector’s prize. But it gave no just idea of the true splendor of the 
bird. Later, when I came to travel in Guatemala, I found its image 
very much in evidence, in the medallion displayed on the walls of 
most of the public edifices and in the center of the blue and white 
banner. I even carried quetzales in my pocket and disbursed them at 
sundry hotels and shops; for Guatemala has named her monetary 
unit for her national bird, as many of the neighboring republics have 
named theirs for famous men. The second city of the land bears the 
name of this bird—Quezaltenango, the place of quetzals—but today 
one searches in vain for these trogons on the wind-swept plains and 
through the low oak woods in the vicinity of this metropolis of the 
West. 
In selecting the quetzal as their national emblem, the Guatemalans 
made a more than usually felicitous choice, a creature at once native 
1 Reprinted by permission from The Condor, vol. 46, No. 5, pp. 213-235, September— 
October 1944. 
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