PHAROMACRUS. 483 



beauty whereof they are so in love with, that they chuse rather to be taken and killed, 

 than by endeavouring to get their liberty do anything that may deface or prejudice 

 them. They are said to pick holes in trees, and therein to build and breed up their 

 Young. They feed upon Worms, and certain wild Pinnae, of that sort which the 

 Mexicans are wont to call Matzatli. They love the open air, nor hath it been yet 

 found, that ever they would be kept tame, or brought up in houses. They make a 

 noise not much unlike Parrots : But they have a chearful and pleasant whistle, and 

 they sing thrice a day, to wit, in the Morning, about Noon, and about Sun-set." 



Hernandez wrote in 1651 and Willughby in 1678, and no trace of the doubtful 

 Quetzaltototl so fully described by the former author came to light until the year 1825, 

 when Temminck figured a magnificent Trogon in his ' Planches Coloriees des Oiseaux ' 

 from a specimen lent him by Leadbeater ^ This bird was supposed to be the same as 

 Spix's Trogon pavoninus, and it was not until 1831 that De la Llave gave it the 

 distinctive but barbarous name of Pharomacrns mocinno ^. It is true Bonaparte in 

 1837 ^^ claimed that he had named the bird Trogon paradiseus in 1826, but a reference 

 to any description or name at that date has not been forthcoming to this day. In 

 1835 Gould, unaware of De la Llave's previous paper, called the bird Trogon 

 resplendens ^^, and figured it in the first edition of his Monograph of the Family i^. 



The haunts of the Quezal having been traced to the mountain-forests of Vera Paz, 

 one of the Departments of Guatemala (the Quahtemallam of Hernandez), the French 

 traveller Delattre visited the district and gave an account of his experiences in the 

 ' Echo du Monde Savant ' ^^ in an article which was subsequently reprinted in the 

 ' Revue Zoologique ' for 1843 i^. From that time a regular trade in Quezal skins was 

 established, without the restrictions of the early days, and large numbers were yearly 

 exported, Coban, the capital of Alta Vera Paz, being the central collecting ground. 

 In 1860 Salvin stayed some weeks in this district and made a special expedition with 

 skilled hunters to forests inhabited by Quezals, and the following account of the 

 habits of this bird and the method of hunting them is taken from the paper he 

 published on the subject ^°. 



The scene of these notes was in the high range of hills which form the northern 

 boundary of the valley of the Cahabon river and the watershed between it and the 

 upper or southern tributaries to the Rio de la Pasion ; the summit and northern slopes 

 of this range were at that time clothed with dense forest, and the altitude being 

 4000 feet above the sea and upwards the climate was cool but very damp. 



The Quezal never leaves the forests of this description, and on entering the part 

 referred to from the village of Lanquin in the valley birds of this species were at once 

 met with. The experienced hunter when at work imitates the various calls of the 

 bird and entices it within shot. One of these calls consists principally of a low double 

 note " whe-oo" " whe-ou," which the bird repeats, whistling it softly at first, and then 

 gradually swelling it into a loud but not unmelodious cry. This is often succeeded by 



61* 



