290 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1946 
INCIDENTAL OBSERVATIONS 
Fach of the three pairs of quetzals to which I devoted most atten- 
tion reared, or attempted to rear, a second brood. Incubation of the 
first set of eggs began in early April and the nestlings departed about 
May 20. At least two of these pairs, and probably all three, were 
successful with their early broods. In June, all three were incubating 
once more. The two whose 60-foot-high holes were still available, 
laid their second sets of eggs in the same cavity as the first. I saw 
one of these pairs cleaning out the old nest, but how thoroughly they 
performed this task must be left to the imagination. The pair whose 
30-foot-high nest we had the inspiration to pull over, after the de- 
parture of the fledglings, laid again in a lower hole 50 yards distant 
from the first, where at last I was able to see the eggs and follow the 
development of the nestlings whose history we have recorded. 
While he incubated the eggs and attended the nestlings, the male 
quetzal’s ornamental plumes suffered severely from constant flexing 
and from friction against the rough edges of the nest’s single entrance. 
The wear and tear began to tell even before the nestlings of the first 
brood were old enough to get along without brooding. As early 
as April 30, I found my second male sitting in his nest with only the 
short length of a single plume projecting from the doorway to show 
that he was within. Most of the males, I believe, suffered similar 
losses by the time the first brood was awing. The point where the 
plumes broke off was often a little beyond the tip of the tail proper. 
But at least one male proudly displayed both his banners before his 
doorway while he incubated the second set of eggs. Possibly he was 
a new mate of the female who attempted to rear a first brood in the 
same hole. 
On all my visits to their nest, the parent quetzals had never darted 
at me nor made any display to lure me from its vicinity. ‘They merely 
perched close by to watch, nervously twitching their tails or at most 
darting excitedly from branch to branch. In this they agreed with all 
other trogons I have watched at the nest. 
In no other region have I found the birds of nearly all kinds so 
fearless of man as in the forests of the more remote parts of the Costa 
Rican highlands. In this respect they differed greatly from those 
I studied in the Guatemalan highlands, where the human population 
is relatively dense. The quetzals were by no means the most con- 
fiding of the birds; yet I never ceased to marvel that such large, 
brilliant wild creatures should be at all times so bold in the presence 
ofman. In sharp contrast to the behavior of some other birds I have 
watched, the quetzals’ disregard of the human presence became most 
pronounced while they attended their nestlings. With the exception 
of a pair of Baird’s trogons that nested last year in the forest near my 
