314 



GEOGRAPHICAL ZOOLOGY. 



[PAKT IV. 



Family 66.— TROGONID^. (7 Genera, 44 Species.) 



General Distribution. 



The Trogons form a well-marked family of insectivorous 

 forest-haunting birds, whose dense yet puffy plumage exhibits 

 the most exquisite tints of pink, crimson, orange, brown, or 

 tnetallic green, often relieved by delicate bands of pure white. 

 In one Guatemalan species the tail coverts are enormously 

 lengthened into waving plumes of rich metallic green, as grace- 

 ful and marvellous as those of the Paradise-birds. Trogons are 

 tolerably abundant in the Neotropical and Oriental regions, and 

 are represented in Africa by a single species of a peculiar 

 genus. The genera now generally admitted are the following : — 



Trogon (24 sp.), Paraguay to Mexico, and west of the Andes 

 in Ecuador ; Temnotrogon (1 sp.), Hayti ; Prionotdes (1 sp.), 

 Cuba (Plate XVII. Vol. II. p. 67) ; Apaloderma (2 sp.). Tropical 

 and South Africa; Harpactes (10 sp.), the Oriental region, exclud- 

 ing China ; Pharomacrus (5 sp.), Amazonia to Guatemala ; 

 Euptilotis (1 sp.), Mexico. 



Remains of Trogon have been found in the Miocene deposits 

 of France ; and we are thus able to understand the existing 

 distribution of the family. At that exceptionally mild period in 

 the northern hemisphere, these birds may have ranged over all 

 Europe and North America ; but, as the climate became more 

 severe they gradually became restricted to the tropical regions, 

 where alone a sufficiency of fruit and insect-food is found all the 

 year round. 



