TROGON, the name of birds forming the family Trogonidae. The trogons are birds of moderate size, the smallest hardly bigger than a thrush, the largest less bulky than a crow. The bill is wide at the gape, which is beset by recurved bristles. They seize most of their food on the wing. Their flight is short, rapid and spas modic. Their feet are weak and of a unique structure, the second toe, which in most birds is the inner anterior one, being reverted; in all other birds that have two toes before and two behind, the outer toe is turned backward. The plumage is beautiful and characteristic, and the glory of the group culminates in the quezal (q.v.). The plumage is further remarkable for the absence of down and for the large size of its contour-feathers, which are ex tremely soft and so loosely seated as to come off in scores at a touch. The tail is a characteristic feature, the rectrices being often curiously squared at the tip. The nidification of these
birds is in holes of trees, wherein are laid without any bedding two roundish eggs, generally white, but certainly in one species (quezal) tinted with bluish green.