INTRODUCTION. xl

Mr. Belt, in his entertaming work ‘The Naturalist in Nicaragua’ (pp. 122, 128),

gives a note on the birds of this family met with in that country :—

“The Trogons are general feeders. I have taken from their crops the remains
of fruits, grasshoppers, beetles, termites, and even small crabs and land-shells. Three
species are not uncommon in the forest round San Domingo. In all of them
the females are dull brown or slaty black on the back and neck, these parts being
beautiful bronze-green in the male. The largest species (Zrogon massena, Gould) is
1 foot im length, dark bronze-green above, with the smaller wing-feathers speckled white
and black, and the belly of a beautiful carmine. Sometimes it sits on a branch above
where the army of ants are foraging below ; and when a grasshopper or other large insect
flies up and alights on a leaf, it darts after it, picks it up, and returns to its perch.
I sometimes found them breaking into the nests of the termites with their strong bills,

and eating the large soft-bodied workers; and it was from the crop of this species that

I took the remains of a small crab and land-shell (Helicina).

“Of the two smaller species, one (7 rogon atricollis, Vieill.) is bronze-green above,
with speckled black-and-white wings, belly yellow, and under-feathers of the tail barred
with black. The other (Trogon caligatus, Gould) is rather smaller, of similar colours,

excepting the head, which is black, and a dark blue collar round the neck.

“Both species take short, quick, jerky flights, and are often met with along with
flocks of other birds (Flycatchers, Tanagers, Creepers, Woodpeckers, &c.), that hunt
together, traversing the forests in flocks of hundreds belonging to more than a_ score
of different species; so that whilst they are. passing over, the trees seem alive

with them.

‘Mr. Bates has mentioned similar gregarious flocks met with by him in Brazil; and
I never went any distance into the woods around San Domingo without seeing them. The
reason of their association together may be partly for protection, as no rapacious bird or
mammal could approach the flock without being discovered by one or other of them; but the

principal reason appears to be that they play into each other’s hands in their search for food.

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