tzanatl

[Huaxyacac at aol.com]

Just a note on Fran's point about tzanatl: when Anderson and Dibble
translated Sahagun's Book 11, the large grackles found in Mexico were
considered to belong to the species Quiscalus (or Cassidix) major, the
Boat-tailed Grackle. Since then, the birds found from Texas through Peru have
been placed in a separate species, the Great-tailed Grackle, Quiscalus
mexicanus.

Interestingly, Hernandez provides the name hueitzanatl for the same bird, Q.
mexicanus. One of these days I'm going to do a point by point comparison of
Sahagun and Hernandez's bird names-- there are a lot of similarities, but
some interesting differences, too.

Alec Christensen