species (with which he first became acquainted prior to 1810, from examining more than a dozen specimens obtained by the naturalhistory expedition to New Spain and kept in the palace of the Retiro near Madrid) under the name by which it is now commonly known, Pharomacrus mocinno,1 in memory of a Mexican naturalist, Dr. Mociño. This fact, however, being almost unknown to the rest of the world, Gould, while pointing out Temminck's error (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1835, p. 29), gave the species the name of Trogon resplendens, which it bore for some time. Yet little or nothing was generally known about the bird until Delattre sent an account of his meeting with it to the Echo du Monde Savant for 1843 (reprinted Rev. Zool. for that year, pp. 163-165). In 1860 the nidification of the species, about which strange stories had been told to the naturalist last named, was determined, and its eggs, of a pale bluish-green, were procured by Mr. Robert Owen (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1860, p. 374; Ibis, 1861, p. 66, pl. ii. fig. 1); while further and fuller details of its habits (of which want of space forbids even an abstract here) were made known by Mr. Salvin (Ibis, 1861, pp. 138-149) from his own observation of this very local and remarkable species. Its chief home is in the mountains near Coban in Vera Paz, but it also inhabits forests in other parts of Guatemala at an elevation of from 6000 to 9000 feet.

The Quezal is hardly so big as a Turtle-Dove. The cock has a fine yellow bill and a head bearing a rounded crest of filamentous feathers; lanceolate scapulars overhang the wings, and from the rump spring the long flowing plumes which are so characteristic of

1 M. Sallé translated De la Llave's very rare and interesting memoir (Rev. et Mag. de Zool. 1861, pp. 23-33). Bonaparte stated (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1837, p. 101) that in 1826 he had proposed the name paradiseus for this species, and had communicated a notice of it to an American journal. There seems no reason to doubt his statement, and the journal was most likely the Contributions of the Maclurian Lyceum, published at Philadelphia (1827-29), to which, as he says in his Sulla seconda edizione del Regno Animale del Barone Cuvier Osservazioni (Bologna: 1830, p. 80), he sent some remarks on Swainson's Synopsis of the Birds of Mexico, and believed they had been printed there. But these Contributions unfortunately came to an end with the third number, and the only article by Bonaparte they contain is a Catalogue of the Birds of the United States (pp. 8-34), so that his criticism of Swainson's paper (which had appeared in the Philosophical Magazine for 1827), though doubtless accepted for publication, has never seen the light. Dr. Hartlaub has printed (Naumannia, 1852, Hft. 2, p. 51) part of a letter from Duke Paul of Würtemberg, in which the writer says that in 1831 he communicated a description of P. mocinno to Cuvier, who thought that its long train-feathers had been put together artificially. He possibly had in mind the celebrated feather treasured in the Escurial as having come from the wing of the Archangel Gabriel. This might be thought to have been a Quezal's, but the author of Vathek who saw it in 1787, says (Italy with Sketches of Spain, ii. p. 325) it was rose-coloured.

the species, and were so highly prized by the natives prior to the Spanish conquest that no one was allowed to kill the bird when taken, but only to divest it of its feathers, which were to be worn by the chiefs alone. These plumes, the middle and longest of which may measure from three feet to three feet and a half, are with the upper surface, the throat and chest, of a resplendent goldengreen, while the lower parts are of a vivid scarlet. The middle feathers of the tail, ordinarily concealed, as are those of the Peacock, by the uropygials, are black, and the outer white with a black base. In the hen the bill is black, the crest more round and not filamentous, the uropygials scarcely elongated and the vent only scarlet. The eyes are of a yellowish-brown. Southern examples from Costa Rica and Veragua have the tail-coverts much narrower, and have been needlessly considered to form a distinct species under the name of P. costaricensis. There are, however, three good congeneric species, P. antisianus, P. auriceps and P. pavoninus, from various parts of South America, and, though all are beautiful birds, none possesses the wonderful singularity of the Quezal.

QUILL, properly that part of FEATHER which is often called the "barrel"; but in common use applied to any feather that has a barrel of considerable size, and especially to the large feathers of the tail and wing (see RECTRICES, REMIGES).

QUILL-TAIL COOT, a local name in North America for Erismatura rubida, one of the Spiny-tailed DUCKS (p. 168).

QUINCK-GOOSE, a fowlers' name of the BRANT-Goose (pp.

57, 375).

QUISCALUS, said to be from the Low Latin Quiscula or Quisquilla, which like Quaquila are supposed to be renderings of Quagila or some such word, and to mean QUAIL, but the first is used as the scientific name of the genus to which belong the BOAT-TAIL GRACKLES, and also occasionally as an English word.

QUIT, a name applied in Jamaica, and perhaps some others of the British Antilles, to several very different kinds of birds, probably from the note they utter (cf. GUIT-GUIT). Thus the Banana Quit is the SUGAR-BIRD, the Blue Quit is Euphonia jamaica, one of the TANAGERS, the Grass-Quits are species of Phonipara allied if not belonging to the Emberizida (BUNTING), and the Orange-Quit is Glossoptila ruficollis, one of the Cærebida.

1 Preserved specimens, if exposed to the light, lose much of their beauty in a few years, the original glorious colour becoming a dingy greenish-blue.

R

RACE-HORSE, a name applied by seamen to the LOGGERHEAD Duck (p. 518) for more than a century, but of late years superseded by that of Steamer-Duck.

RACQUET-TAIL, a name given to several of the MOTмOTS, and by Gould to HUMMING-BIRDS of the genus Spathura.

RADIUS, the straighter and more slender of the two bones of the forearm (the other being the ULNA). Its proximal end forms a shallow cup for articulation with the outer condyle of the HUMERUS, while the distal end bears a knob which fits into the radial bone of the CARPUS.

RAFTER-BIRD, a local name of the Spotted FLYCATCHER.

RAIL (German Ralle, French Râle, Low Latin Rallus), originally the English name of two birds, distinguished from one another by a prefix as Land-Rail and Water-Rail, but latterly applied in a much wider sense to all the species which are included in the Family Rallidæ.

The LAND-RAIL, also very commonly known as the Corn-Crake, and sometimes as the Daker-Hen, is the Rallus crex of Linnæus and Crex pratensis of later authors. Its monotonous grating cry, which has given it its common name in several languages, is a familiar sound throughout the summer-nights in many parts of the British Islands; but the bird at that season very seldom shews itself, except when the mower lays bare its nest, the owner of which, if it escape beheading by the scythe, may be seen for an instant before it disappears into the friendly covert of the stillstanding grass. In early autumn the partridge-shooter not unfrequently flushes it from a clover-field or tangled hedgerow; and, as it rises with apparent labour and slowly flies away to drop into the next place of concealment, if it fall not to his gun, he wonders how so weak-winged a creature can ever make its way to the shores if not to the interior of Africa, whither it is almost certainly bound; for, with comparatively few individual exceptions, the Land-Rail is essentially migratory-nay more than that, it is the Ortygometra of classical authors-supposed by them to lead the QUAIL on its voyages-and in the course of its wanderings has now been known to reach the coast of Greenland, and several times that of North America, to say nothing of Bermuda, in every instance we may believe as a straggler from Europe or Barbary. An example has even been recorded from New South Wales (Rec. Austral. Mus. ii.

p. 82). The Land-Rail needs but a brief description. It looks about as big as a Partridge, but on examination its appearance is found to be very deceptive, and it will hardly ever weigh more than half as much. The plumage above is of a tawny brown, the feathers being longitudinally streaked with blackish-brown; beneath it is of a yellowish-white; but the flanks are of a light chestnut. The species is very locally distributed, and in a way for which there is at present no accounting. In some dry upland and corn-growing districts it is plentiful; in others, of apparently the same character, it but rarely occurs; and the same may be said in regard to lowlying marshy meadows, in most of which it is in season always to be heard, while in others having a close resemblance to them it is never met with. The nest is on the ground, generally in long grass, and therein from nine to eleven eggs are commonly laid. These are of a cream-colour, spotted and blotched with light red and grey. The young when hatched are thickly clothed with black down, as is the case in nearly all species of the Family.

The WATER-RAIL, locally known by several names as Bilcock or Skiddy, is the Rallus aquaticus of Ornithology, and seems to be less abundant than the

RALLUS. (After Swainson.)

preceding, though that is in some measure due to its frequenting places into which from their swampy nature men do not often intrude. Having a general resemblance to the Land-Rail,1 it can be in a moment distinguished by its partly red and much longer bill, and the darker coloration of its plumage the upper parts being of an olive-brown with black streaks, the breast and belly of a sooty-grey, and the flanks dull black barred with white. Its geographical distribution is very wide, extending from Iceland (where it is said to preserve its existence during winter by resorting to the hot springs) to China; and though it inhabits Northern India, Lower Egypt and Barbary, it seems not to pass beyond the tropical line. It never affects upland districts as does the Land-Rail, but always haunts wet marshes or the close vicinity of water. Its love-note is a loud and harsh cry, not continually repeated as is that of the Land-Rail, but uttered at considerable intervals and so suddenly as to have been termed "explosive." Besides this, which is peculiar to the cock-bird, it has a croaking call that is frog-like. The eggs resemble those of the preceding, but are more brightly and delicately tinted.

1 Formerly it seems to have been a popular belief in England that the Land-Rail in autumn transformed itself into a Water-Rail, resuming its own character in spring. I have met with several persons of general intelligence who had serious doubts on the subject.