QUEZAL, or Quesal, the Spanish-American name for one of the most beautiful of birds, abbreviated from the Aztec or Maya Quetzal-tototl, the last part of the compound word meaning fowl, and the first, also written Cuetzal, the long feathers of rich green with which it is adorned. The Quezal is one of the Trogons (g ’.v.), and was originally described by Hernandez {Historia, p. 13), whose account was faithfully copied by Willughby. Yet the bird remained practically unknown to ornithologists until figured in 1825, from a specimen belonging to Leadbeater, by Temminck {Pl. col., 372) who, however, mistakenly thought it was the same as the Trogon pavoninus, a congeneric but quite distinct species from Brazil, that had just been described by Spix. The scientific determination of the Quetzal-bird of Central America seems to have been first made by Bonaparte in 1826, as Trogon paradiseus, according to his statement in the Zoological Society’s Proceedings for 1837 (p. 101); but it is not known whether the fact was ever published. In 1832 the Registro Trimestre, a literary and scientific journal printed at Mexico, of which few copies can exist in Europe, contained a communication by Dr Pablo de la Llave, describing this species (with which he first became acquainted prior to 1810, from examining more than a dozen specimens obtained by the natural-history 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 mocino. z These facts, however, being almost unknown to the rest of the world, Gould, in the Zoological Proceedings for 1835 (p. 29), while pointing out Temminck’s error, gave the species the name of Trogon resplendens, which it bore for some time. Yet little or nothing was generally known ...

QUEZALTENANGO, a city of Guatemala, capital of the province of its own name, lies on the Siguila in a fertile district about 25 or 30 miles to the west of Lake Atitlan, on the high road between the city of Guatemala and the Mexican province of Chiapas. It has a cathedral and other public buildings, carries on the manufacture of cotton and wool, and contains from 20,000 to 30,000 inhabitants, mostly Indians. In the days of the Quiché power Quezaltenango, or, as it was then called, Xelahuh, was one of the largest and most flourishing cities in the country. The Spanish city was founded by Alvarado in 1524.