T R O G O N Mexicanns. 

 Mexican Trogon. Male. 



Tribe Fissirostres. Family Trogouidae. 



Sub-family Trogoninae. (G. Trogon. Auct.) 



Generic Character. See Lesson Man. 2 p. 139. 



Specific Character. 



Above golden green, beneath crimson; tail black; the three outer 

 feathers banded ivith white on their outer iveb onli/ ; inner 

 webs with an oblique ivhite stripe along their shafts ; the inner 

 edge spotted with white. Male. 



Trogon Mexicanus, female. See Swains, in Phil. Mag. June 1827. 

 Mus. Dom. Taylor. 



The Troj^ons are found only in the dark primeval forests of 

 the Tropics; shunning the haunts of man, and Hving in 

 solitude and silence. It is not, therefore, to be wondered 

 at, that their peculiar economy should be shrouded in 

 mystery, or that the naturalists of Europe should be much 

 perplexed in finding them a place in their artificial or their 

 natural systems. Our researches in Tropical America, will 

 fenable us to communicate, in the forthcoming volume of 

 Northern Zoology, some very singular information on these 

 birds, which we shall not now anticipate. 



The species are much more numerous then is imagined, 

 but they are, perhaps, less understood than those of any one 

 group of Ornithology. IMales of diflferent species are 

 classed as the same, while their females are considered as 

 distinct. The number enumerated in the last edition of the 

 Synopsis of Birds as inhabiting all South America, is six ; 

 but we possess eight species from Brazil alone; besides 

 several others, which it is impossible to identify from books. 



The Mexican Trogon was first described by us, from a 

 bird, which we felt assured was a female; and this belief 

 was soon after confirmed, by the arrival of a fine specimen 

 of the male, to IMr. Taylor, from Real del Monte; in whose 

 possession it now is. We shall dolor a detailed account of 

 its plumage, until we illustrate the other sex. 



Total length 11 in. bill nine-tenths, wings 5f, tail 7f, the 

 outermost feather 3^ in. shorter. 



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