JOURNEY TO GUATEMALA. 



137 



pigeon. Its plumage is of a metallic golden green, except 

 that of the wings, which is spotted with a brilliant red 

 and black. The head is adorned with a soft silky crest 

 of short barred feathers, of a beautiful green. But the 

 distinguishing feature of this bird, and that which consti- 

 tutes its peculiarity and beauty, is the plumage of its tail, 

 which consists of three or four loose wavy feathers of a 

 rich green, powdered with gold. These feathers are 

 barred, and about three feet long. They used to be worn 

 by the aborigines of America as ornaments for the head. 

 In brilliancy of plumage, and in symmetry of form, this 

 bird — even setting aside the grace and beauty of its pen- 

 dent plumage — is unrivalled among the feathered tribe. 

 When deprived of the ornament of its tail, the quesal 

 seems sensible of the injury : it sickens and dies. Such 

 is the importance it attaches to this part of its gorgeous 

 dress, that the nest it makes is provided with two aper- 

 tures, one for egress, the other for regress, in order to 

 avoid the necessity of turning, by which the feathers of 

 its tail might be broken or disordered. For the same rea- 

 son it seldom makes a short or sudden turn. The In- 

 dians held it sacred, and used to say that the Creator, 

 when he formed the world, assumed the form of a 

 quesal. 



The chorcha, a species of oreole, is remarkable for the 

 curious construction of its nest, which is of the kind 

 called pensile, from the circumstance of its being sus- 

 pended in the air, by a mere thread, from the extremity 

 of a lofty branch. In the construction of this nest, an 

 architectural conception is displayed, the most ingenious, 

 artificial, and complicate, that it is possible to imagine. 

 It is a bird of small size, and its plumage is black and 

 yellow. It is to be found also in the United States ; and 

 as a very correct account of it is given in Wilson's Orni- 

 thology, any description of it here would be super- 

 fluous, x 

 18 



