T m ■ S l i p M E I I C A M 11 fSwcanj:)
Mexican Trogon.
tAdulb
TROGON MEXICAN! ! « .
Mexican Trogon.
(Adult male.)
S p e c i f i c C h a r a c t e r .
Trog. supra et ad pectus viridi; gutture auribus, albtquc uigns, his cinereo punctatis; torque
vectorali alba; ventre crissoque coccineis; rectricibus ditabus mtermediis viridibus nigro
apiculatis, duabus proximis utrinque nigrisf reltquis ad basin nigris ad apicem albis.
Rostrum flavum : tarst bruuut i.
Beak bright yellow; throat and ear-coverts black, grad
; two middie u*ii-feathers green with
t ; the three outer on each side hlack
,
with the exception of the primaries,
;les the chest ; breast, belly, and under
covers the chest and the whole of the upper surface
black tips; the two next on each side wholly blael
with white tips; wings black, the whole of which,is finely dotted with grey : a crescent of white encin
tail-covert8 fine scarlet; feet brown.
Total length, 11 to 12inches; wing, £>£.; tail,
I t is only by the careful examination of a great number of specimens of different ages that the ornithologist
is enabled to understand the changes of plumage which birds of this tribe undergo while passing from youth
to maturity, and which render them in specific distinction so extremely perplexing. The preceding remark
applies more particularly to the Trogons of the New World, which exhibit in their barred tails a feature that
will at all times readily distinguish them from those of the Old ■ but though we find that the barred tail is
characteristic of roost of the species at a certain period of their existence, yet in some it is only the sign of
immft* while ht others it is a striking feature in the adult.
The bird here was evidently considered by Mr. Swainson as a different species from TV. Mexieanus,
as on looking over the collection of birds in the possession of John Taylor, Esq., I observed a specimen
hi the plumage of the present Plate, with a label attached to it bearing the name of Trogo* Mur gum
in Mr. Swainson’s handwriting; under which name I should have figured it. had I not discovered in another
collection recently received by Mr. Taylor from Real ch i Monte, specimens directly intermediate between
the Barred-tail Trogon as figured by Mr. Swainson in im Zoological Illustrations and the bird here
represented; and as this difference is not effected by a change in the colouring of the feather, but by the
accession of a new one, the evidence is the more conclusive. One of these birds possessed the strongly-barred
tail on one side, while bn the other it had a new feather, bearing all the characteristics of mature age in
being more square at the end and in being wholly black with a white tip.
I. cannot close this account without offering my sincere thanks to Mr. John Taylor for the assistance which
he has rendered me in the investigation of this tribe of birds, by the loan of specimens in the most interesting
stages of plumage.
Habitat Northern Mexico.