The Black-tailed Trogon is a bird of very wide distribution in South America. It is found in Guiana, 
and the Museum Heineanum is said to contain an example from Venezuela. Messrs. Cabanis and Heine, in 
their account of the last-named Museum, separate the Trogon from Ecuador as a distinct species; but I 
have not found sufficient characters for this specific separation, and I therefore keep it under the heading of 
T.melamrus. Mr. Fraser met with the species at Babahoyo, in the latter country; while in the Amazons it 
has been procured by Mr. Bates at Ega and on the Rio Javarri, by Mr. Hauxwell at Pebas, and by 
Mr. Edward Bartlett in Eastern Peru, at Nauta, on the Upper Ucayali, as well as at Yurimaguas, Xeberos, 
and Santa Cruz, while Mr. Henry Whitely has shot it in the valley of the Cosnipata in Peru. 
The British Museum possesses a specimen from Para, procured by Mr. R. Graham, and Mr. Wallace met 
with it in the same locality. In his excellent work on Natterer’s Ornithological Travels in Brazil, Herr von 
Pelzeln enumerates several places where that model collector obtained specimens. Like the naturalists 
above mentioned, Natterer found it at Para, and higher up the country on the Rio Negro, at Barra, and 
Maribitanas ; he also procured it in Central Brazil, in the province of Matto Grosso, at Villa Maria, and 
on the Rio do Sipotuba. 
As is the case with nearly all the Trogons, the details as to the habits of the present bird are very scanty. 
Mr. Fraser alone gives a short note on the species procured by him at Babahoyo, as follows :—“ Native 
name Chocota. Irides wdiite ; upper mandible with a large yellow spot at the base, lower mandible yellow; 
legs and feet greenish, soles yellow. Much more active than any other Trogon which I have yet had an 
opportunity of observing, hopping from branch to branch in the lower part of a large tree in the deep bush. 
solitary and silent.” 
On this species Mr. Salvin writes to me:— 
“ Many authors consider that this bird should bear Linnaeus’s name Trogon curucui ; but it is evident, 
from the references added to the diagnosis given in the ‘ Systema Naturae,’ that more than one species was 
confused under the name curucui. Moreover Dr. Cabanis, whose authority on such subjects is entitled to 
the highest respect, considers that the name curucui belongs not to the present bird but to T. collaris, a 
view, again, disputed by Dr. Finsch. Under these conflicting opinions I believe that the interests of science 
are best served by considering Linnaeus’s name to be incapable of accurate determination, and by selecting 
the first subsequently proposed name, about which no reasonable doubts can be entertained. The name 
melamrus, bestowed by Swainson, thus becomes a proper title for this Trogon; and as one of Swainson’s 
types is still preserved in the Museum of the University of Cambridge, this name may be used with the 
greatest confidence. The specimen is a female and bears on its label “ Trogon nigricauda, Sw. Black¬ 
tailed T. Cayenne,”—from which it would appear that although Swainson first thought of using for this bird 
the Latin rendering of “ black-tailed,” he adopted the Greek translation when describing it. Under the 
former it appears in the first edition of the Trogonidae. 
“The bird from Western Ecuador has been separated by Messrs. Cabanis and Heine as Troctes mesurus, 
the differences being stated to consist in its slightly larger size and slight modifications in the coloration 
of the lower back and the tail-feathers and in the mottling of the wing-coverts. As these differences are 
traced from the comparison of only four specimens of the two species, it may well turn out that they are 
not sufficiently pronounced to lead to the conclusion that two really distinct birds of this form exist.” 
The figures in the accompanying Plate are of the size of life. 
