INTRODUCTION.

 

In selecting the Family of Trogons as the subject of my second Monograph, I was
influenced by the full conviction, not only that it was one fraught with interest, but that
much was left buried in obscurity, which when brought to light would materially tend

to the advancement of Ornithology.

The Trogons, as their general structure and their habits sufficiently indicate, belong
to the fissirostral tribe of the Insessores. | Greatly insectivorous, they seize the flitting
insect on the wing, which their wide gape enables them to do with facility; while their
feeble tarsi and feet are such as to qualify them merely for resting on the branches, as
a post of observation, whence to mark their prey as it passes, and to which, having given
chase, to return. As in all other groups, however, we shall find modifications of the
type, constituting the ground of generic or sub-generic divisions, to which we shall advert

more fully when we come to speak of them in detail.

If not strictly elegant in form, the Trogons in the brilliancy of their plumage are
surpassed only by the Trochelide: their splendour amply compensates for every other
defect. Denizens of the intertropical regions of the Old and New World, they shroud
their glories in the deep and gloomy recesses of the forest, avoiding the light of day and
the observation of man; dazzled by the brightness of the meridional sun, morning and
evening twilight is the season of their activity. We can add, however, but little to the
elegant description of their habits given in Mr. Griffith’s edition of Cuvier’s Animal Kingdom ;

I venture therefore to quote his words.