138 Mr. 0, Salvin's Qaesal-shooting in Vera Paz. 



XIV. — Quesal-shooting in Vera Paz. 

 By OsBERT Salvin, M.A., F.Z.S. 



As the greater part of this account of the mode of collecting 

 Quesals {Pharomacrus paradiseus), as pursued by the Coban 

 hunters, was written at the time in the form of a diary, I have 

 thought it best to preserve it in the same shape throughout. 



March 1. — Rain all day and every day is what one must ex- 

 pect to encounter on visiting Coban. Such was the weather in 

 November, and now, the month of March brings no signs of the 

 dry season, when in Guatemala people have almost forgotten what 

 rain is. When travelling from place to place, the fates have in 

 general been propitious, and on coming here they did not desert 

 me. Two fine days enabled me to reach Coban from San Geronimo 

 with a dry skin, but the next day the usual driving, misty rain 

 greeted us on rising, and morning after morning brings no 

 change for the better. Luckily, I have found plenty of indoors 

 work in arranging and labelling the collections made during my 

 absence. Moreover, Coban has this advantage. A mere hint 

 at what branch of natural history one has a leaning towards is 

 sufficient to bring in specimens in an almost unbroken stream. 

 Boy follows boy, till one hardly knows which way to turn to stow 

 away the spoils in the shape of birds, snakes, lizards, toads, 

 frogs, &c., and no small amount of time is occupied in paying 

 these young rascals (for they all try to cheat) for their captures. 

 Like everything else, my work appears to have an end. The 

 birds are finished and packed, novelties are no longer brought 

 in. The period of my stay being limited, idleness cannot be 

 long endured, and I am determined, rain or no rain, to be off to 

 the mountain-forests in search of Quesals, to see and shoot which 

 has been a day-dream for me ever since I set foot in Central 

 America. Having secured the services of Cipriano Prado, the 

 most successful Quesal-hunter in Coban, and at the same time 

 a bird-collector of no mean ability, and also of Filipe Sierra, 

 another hunter of Coban, we are beginning to prepare for the 

 journey. It is necessary to take provisions, and we are accord- 

 ingly laying in a stock of salt meat, 'pixtones' (round maize cakes 

 i of an inch thick), ' tamalis ' (maize puddings), and ' topopoxti ' 



