SEQUELS 281 
up, saw me, shifted a few feet farther off and 
perched full of curiosity, craning her neck and 
looking first with one eye, then the other. Now 
the male began a content song. With all possible 
variations of his few and simple tones, on a low 
and very sweet timbre, he belied his unoscine 
perch in the tree of bird life, and sang to himself. 
Now and then he was drowned out by the shrill- 
ing of cicadas, but it was a delightful serenade, 
and he seemed to enjoy it as much asI did. A 
few days before, I had made a careful study of 
the syrinx of this‘bird, whom we may call rather 
euphoniously T'rogonurus curucui, and had been 
struck by the simplicity both of muscles and 
bones. Now, having summoned his mate in regu- 
lar accents, there followed this unexpected whis- 
per song. It recalled similar melodies sung by 
pheasants and Himalayan partridges, usually 
after they had gone to roost. 
Once the female swooped after an insect, and 
in the midst of one of the sweetest passages of 
the male trogon, a green grasshopper shifted his 
position. He was only two inches away from the 
singer, and all this time had been hidden by his 
ehlorophyll-hued veil. And now the trogon 
fairly fell off the branch, seizing the insect al- 
