"Resident through the year at Concepcion, but especially abundant in
winter, when it haunts the main river, the island-shores, and all the
streams, big and little. It is not in the least shy, and one once
perched in some willows directly over my boat and not 10 feet away,
while he swallowed a tiny fish he had just captured; after which he
twitted such a hearty little song that I really felt as if his proper
place must be among the _Oscines_, in spite of all anatomical defects.
On the Pampas, we found this a rather common bird on the small streams,
and its presence on some streams whose waters are entirely absorbed by
the desert before they can reach either sea or lake, first called my
attention to the presence, even in these streams, of numbers of a small
fish which is found in many of the pools as well all over the Pampas.
Although both this and the preceding species must nest about Concepcion,
I did not succeed of learning anything of the nest or eggs."
Fam. XXV. TROGONIDÆ, or TROGONS.
The Trogons, a family peculiar among all zygodactyle birds for having
the inner toe instead of the outer toe reversed in position, are found
in the Old World as well as in the New. But they are much more abundant
in the Tropics of America, where they number some thirty species,
and attain an astonishing development of ornamental plumage in the
celebrated Quézal (_Pharomacrus_) of Guatemala. In Argentina two stray
species only have, as yet, been recorded as met with in the northern
provinces.
The Trogons are purely arboreal in habits, and frequent the larger trees
of the denser forests, feeding mainly on insects.