34 The Cuban Trogo7i. 
for me to do is to give a description aud such notes of its wild 
life as I have been able to compile. 
Description: Beak, upper mandible bluish, lower rufous- 
brown ; crown of head a beautiful metallic violet-blue ; ail the 
remainder of upper surface a rich metallic green ; throat, front 
of the neck and chest pale grej', almost white over the throat ; 
abdomen and under tail coverts bright vermilion-red ; scapulary 
and greater wing-coverts green, with a white spot near the 
extremity of outer sides only ; the flights black (bluish under 
some conditions of lighting) with larger or smaller white spots 
the whole length of the outer webs ; tail sharply truncated, the 
two central feathers having the inner webs green and the outer 
webs blue, the outer tail feathers bluish, tipped and spotted with 
white, with outermost feathers on each side entirely blue. 
This beautiful species, is I believe only found in the Island 
of Cuba, and thus its popular name Cuban Trogon is more 
appropriate than is often the case ; it frequents the forest regions 
of that Isle. 
D. Ramon de la Sagra, in " Historia de la Isla de Cuba," 
says, that in their favourite haunts can be heard morning and 
evening, their plaintive song repeated at long intervals, similar to 
the two whistles " to coi," the first much stronger and important 
than the second. The natives of Paraguay say, respecting 
another similar species, that they cry in the morning to call 
the sun out, and in the evening because it is absent. Always 
alone in the big forests they lodge or roost on low branches, 
where they stay immovable for hours at a time, as if asleep and 
but little occupied with their surroundings ; it is thus easy to 
approach and kill, and many are killed because their flesh is 
good. 
Its food is small seeds, etc., which appears to be in con- 
tradiction to the form of the beak, which appears to indicate au 
insectivorous than a granivorous bird. 
The above observations {re food) can be but partial, for the 
Misses M. and E. Kirby, in " Beautiful Birds in Far-ofi" Lands," 
while in agreement with the above writer as to the ease with which 
they may be killed while dozing on the low branches, state that 
their principal diet in a state of nature is fruit, but that they take 
