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LIFE HISTORY OF THE QUETZAL—SKUTCH 291 
house, I have found all the smaller members of the family far more 
wary. The quetzals would as a rule go about feeding their nestlings 
while I stood conspicuously nearby. Both of the males that I knew 
best were at first less trustful than their mates, but they grew more 
confiding in my presence as we became better acquainted. The nest 
of one pair was in the same trunk as that of a pair of house wrens 
(Troglodytes musculus). The tiny, dull brown wrens were far more 
wary than the great, glittering quetzals! 
When I took leave of the quetzals in August, after more than a year 
amid their beautiful but uncomfortably wet forests, they had become 
as silent as when I first found them and they wore only the tattered 
remnants of their full plumage. 
SUMMARY 
The quetzal (Pharomachrus mocinno), one of the most magnificent 
birds of the Western Hemisphere, has a long history of human asso- 
ciation. Its plumes were used for personal adornment by Indian 
royalty and nobility in pre-Columbian times. The bird is the emblem 
of the Republic of Guatemala, whose monetary unit has been named 
for it. A number of legends have gathered about the quetzal. 
The quetzal is an inhabitant of the lofty, humid forests of the Sub- 
tropical Zone, ranging from 4,000 to 9,000 or 10,000 feet above sea level 
in Costa Rica, somewhat lower in Guatemala. Where these forests 
are destroyed, the bird disappears. It is at present protected by law 
in Guatemala, but owes its survival largely to the inaccessibility of 
its habitat. While making this study, the writer dwelt for a year in 
a part of the Costa Rican cloud forests where quetzals were abundant. 
The appearance of the quetzal is described from notes taken while 
observing the living bird. The female is exceptional among trogons 
in the large amount of green in her plumage. 
The bird eats many small fruits, which it plucks on the wing, in the 
manner of other trogons. 
Its vocabularly is varied: a loud note, given in flight, was heard 
throughout the year; additional notes were heard during the mating 
and nesting periods. 
In the breeding season, the male often rises above the treetops in a 
flight display, calling loudly as he goes. No other trogon, nor rain- 
forest bird of any kind, is known to make similar flights. 
The quetzal is found in pairs in the breeding season, and usually 
singly at other times. Flocks have been reported, but no trogon is 
known to be truly gregarious. 
In the Costa Rican highlands, the nesting season extends from early 
April to July or August. Two broods are reared, where possible in 
the same nest. 
