THE STUPID JACAMARS. 
89 
keenly on the watch for passing insects. When they have satisfied 
their hunger, they devote the rest of the day to meditation ; seeking 
the leafy shade, and giving vent occasionally to their feelings in a 
peculiarly mournful note, which the Indians syllable as cu-ru-qud. 
This habit would betray them easily to the hunters, but for their 
ventriloquial powers, which they exercise so cleverly that one thinks 
them at a distance when in reality they are just over one's head. 
If all the insectivorous birds sought their food in the same way, 
we might imagine that the result would be a general melde. Only a 
limited number, however, catch their prey on the wing. The trogons 
possess no great powers of flight, and can do no more than make sudden 
sorties at a passing insect from their leaf-embowered perch. They are 
the sedentary philosophers of the Bird World ; almost always " in 
session," their feet being of the feeblest construction, and useless for the 
purpose of climbing or walking. In the course of centuries they have 
learned to adapt themselves to circumstances, and they take to a seden- 
tary life as if they enjoyed it. Perhaps, like Narcissus, they devote 
a good deal of time to the contemplation of their personal charms; 
and in extenuation of this weakness they may plead high examples. 
No doubt, they are as handsome as " fine feathers " can make them. 
We are told by travellers of trogons with brilliant green back and 
rose-coloured breast; of trogons with soft golden-gi-een plumage, red 
breast, and orange-coloured beak (this is the sumqua or curuqua 
grande species) ; and of trogons with steel-blue breast, yellow belly, and 
back of a brilliant metallic green. All this gorgeousness may reconcile 
them, perhaps, to the aspersions cast upon their want of energy. 
They may console themselves, too, with the fact that, by common 
consent, they are not so "stupid" as the jacamars. These tropical forest- 
birds are described as viciously sluggish of temperament; and Mr. 
Bates is quite severe upon their " stupidity in remaining at their posts, 
seated on low branches in the gloomiest shades of the forest." He 
adds : " I sometimes saw two or three together, seated on a slender 
branch, silent and motionless with the exception of a slight movement 
of the head. When an insect flew past within a short distance, one of 
