282 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1946 
eyelids closed. On the seventh day after hatching the contour 
feathers of the body were breaking from the ends of their sheaths, but 
not those of the head. The young were 10 days old before the flight 
plumes of the wings and tail began to push out from the tips of 
the sheaths, a day after the wing coverts had reached the same stage. 
The bill and feet were now becoming blackish. 
At this stage of development, the young quetzals always rested 
side by side on the bottom of their nest with their heads supported 
against the side wall and their bills pointing almost straight upward. 
They did not appear to be comfortable unless their heads were in this 
position, for even when removed from the nest and placed where 
they could find no chin-support, they held them turned abruptly up- 
ward in this fashion. From time to time, when they appeared to 
be hungry, they stretched up their necks and at the same time opened 
their mouths and sharply closed them again, making a snap. Evi- 
dently, like young motmots and woodpeckers, they took food from 
their parents in this harsh, abrupt fashion, instead of holding their 
mouths passively open for the morsel to be placed in it in the manner 
of passerine birds. 
Up to their tenth day, the young quetzals were nourished almost 
entirely with animal food—indeed, I had not yet seen the parents 
bring them a fruit. On their eighth morning I was present when 
their mother came with a golden beetle (Pluszotis aurigans) about an 
inch in length. These coleopterans are certainly the most splendid 
I have ever seen; they are among beetles what the quetzal is among 
birds. 
When the nestling quetzals were 11 days old, buffy spots began to 
appear on their wing coverts. When they attained the age of 2 weeks, 
their bodies were well clothed with feathers so long as they kept their 
wings folded. But the feathers of their heads had only the day before 
begun to escape the horny sheaths. The contrast between the well- 
clothed body and naked head was striking, and gave the little quetzals 
a somewhat vulturine aspect. On their fourteenth day they were 
photographed for the first time. 
From this age onward, fruits, especially those of the laurel family, 
became an increasingly important constituent in the diet of the nest- 
lings, and the large regurgitated seeds began to accumulate beneath 
them in the nest where the parents could not easily reach them for 
removal. Still, they had kept the nest sanitary for almost as long as 
young black-headed and Mexican trogons remain in their uncleaned 
nurseries. 
When the young quetzals were 16 days old, their mother began to 
behave in a most unaccountable fashion. She ceased to brood them 
during the night, although they seemed scarcely old enough to be left 
