pleasure of watching their whole progress, literally ab ovo. Those who are impatient to have a full-grown stock, should still select birds not more than three years old.

The Peacock is capable of considerable attachment to man; and, as might be expected of a bird that has been reared in captivity for several thousand years, may be rendered very tame. By regular feeding he may easily be made to take his place as a liveried attendant at the front door, to show himself, and await his meal with great punctuality. My own bird would come instantly to my call, and not only eat from my hand, but, if I held a piece of bread as high in the air as I could reach, would fly from the ground to take it. The hen was more timid, and could never be induced to give such proofs of confidence. She occasionally erects her tail like the hen Turkey, nor does such display appear to denote the absence of any feminine virtue.

The natural disposition of the Peacock is selfish and gluttonous, and it is only by pampering this weakness that he can be persuaded into obedience and attachment. He is vain, and at the same time ungallant. He is far from manifesting the politeness and attention which the common Cock shows towards his mates. The Peacock will greedily snatch, from the mouth of his hens, those titbits and delicate morsels which the Cock would either share with his favourites, or yield to them entirely. The Peahen, in return, cares less for her lord and master, and is more independent of him when once her amorous inclinations have been indulged. She then regards the display of his tail, his puffings and struttings, and all the rattling of his quills, with the coolest indifference. Nor does he seem to care much about her admiration, or to make all this exhibition of his attractions to secure her notice, but is content if he can get some astonished Hen, or silly, bewildered Duck, up a corner, to wonder what all this fuss is about. Like other vain coxcombs, he expects the lady to make the first advances.

Although occasionally cruel, the Peacock is shy of fighting, particularly when in full plumage; nor do they so frequently engage with each other as with birds of a different species, such as Drakes, Cocks, &c. One, out of feather, was seen to keep up a three hours' struggle with a Musk Drake; had it been in full plumage, it would not have shown fight at all. Their probable term of life is eighteen or twenty years. They may be eaten as poults at nine months old. If fatted, they should be shut up together with any Turkeys that they may have been in the habit of associating with, and fed exactly the same. If confined alone, they pine. They are, however, an excellent viand at a much more advanced age, and without any fatting, provided they have been well fed, and killed at a proper season (that is, when they are not renewing their plumage), and are hung up in the larder a sufficient time before cooking. A disregard to these points has probably led to their being so little appreciated as a dainty dish. Shotten herring, black salmon, pork in the dog days, and illegal oysters, might, in a similar manner, give a bad repute to other good things, did we not manage them better. When dressed for table, they should be larded over the breast, covered with paper, roasted at a gentle fire, and served with bread-sauce and brown gravy, exactly like Partridges or Pheasants. When moulting, extra diet and variety

With the ancient Romans they were esteemed as first-class delicacies:

"Should hunger on your gnawing entrails seize,
Will Turbot only or a Peacock please?"

HORACE, Serm. I. 2.-FRANCIS, Trans.

"Quintus Hortensius was the first who gave the Romans a taste for Peacocks, and it soon became so fashionable a dish, that all people of fortune had it at their tables. Cicero pleasantly says, he had the boldness to invite Hirtius to sup with him, even without a Peacock. 'Sed vide audaciam, etiam Hirtio cænam dedi sine pavone.' M. Aufidius Latro made a prodigious fortune by fattening them for sale." -FRANCIS, Note to Serm. II. 2.

of food, including hemp-seed and animal substances, is most desirable.

In general the Peahen makes her nest on the bare ground, amongst nettles or rank weeds; sometimes she chooses the shelter of a young fir tree. The egg very much resembles that of the Ostrich in miniature, being smooth, but indented all over with little dimples, as if pricked with a strong pin. It is somewhat bigger than a Turkey's egg, bulging considerably at the larger end, of a dull, yellowish white, and occasionally, but not always, spotted, or rather freckled, with a few small reddish brown marks. The new hatched chicks are striped on the head and neck with alternate stripes of dingy yellow and pale brown; their legs are of a dusky yellowish tinge. The under parts and breast are simply yellowish, of a colour something between gamboge and ochre. The first wing feathers are pale cinnamon, barred with brown, like those of a young hawk. The Peahen has a very pleasing low kind of note, like a common Hen, when she has young. this time she often puts herself into curious attitudes, walking about with the head stretched out as far as possible, erecting the neck feathers, and frequently giving one the idea of a wooden bird.

At

There are two varieties of the common Pea-fowl, namely, the Pied and the White. The first has irregular patches of white about it, like the Pied Guinea-fowl, the remainder of the plumage resembling the original sort. The White have the ocellated spots on the tail faintly visible in certain lights. These last are tender, and are much prized by those who prefer rarity to real beauty. They are occasionally produced by birds of the common kind in cases where no intercourse with other White birds can have taken place. In one instance, in the same brood, whose parents were both of the usual colours, there were two of the common sort, and one White cock and one White hen. The old notion respecting them, which has given rise to serious theoretical errors and to many false inferences, is, that they originated in

the north, in Norway or Sweden; the climate in which Ptarmigan, Snow Buntings, Alpine Hares, &c., annually put on a white livery, having made them permanently white. From some minds this false idea has yet to be eradicated; it was the foundation of several of Buffon's boldest speculations respecting the influence of climate on the forms of animals, leading him to hazard the assertion, among others, that the Silver Pheasant is only the Common Pheasant changed to a lighter hue by migration to a more northerly region, while he forgot that the Silver and the Common Pheasant are both natives of the same districts of China and India, and that Aldrovandi, from whom he gleaned the error, instantly refutes it, by stating that White Pea-fowl are frequently hatched in Madeira and the neighbouring islands. Temminck has well discussed the Paon blanc in his Hist. Nat. des Gallinacés, tom. ii.

Nervous and fastidious persons object to their cry or call, which, indeed, is not melodious; and a strip of woollen cloth is sometimes hung round their neck in the fashion of a collar, to silence them; the appendage, however, is anything but an ornament, and the effect is not permanent. But I must take it to be an unhealthy symptom, when any natural or rural sound is displeasing to the ear. The cawing of rooks, the pattering of rain, the hum of bees, the pealing thunder, the laughter of children, the breezy rustling of a grove, the lashing of wintry and the sighing of summer waves, have all been felt by listeners in their happiest moods to be most musical-to have an effect more touching than any music; and should, therefore, be welcome, instead of distasteful, to the healthy sense. And even the screams of Pea-fowl, ringing from a distance on a summer's evening, will suggest an abundance of images and recollections that cannot fail to interest any but the most dull and unimaginative minds.

The common Peacock was, till lately, supposed to be the only species of its genus; but both preserved and

living specimens of the Aldrovandine Pea-fowl, which for a long while was supposed fabulous, have recently been introduced into this country. But there is also a third sort, which, on account of the confusion of synonyms, has not received from naturalists the attention it deserves. The difficulty has been increased by the conversion of "Japan," into "Japanned," by some writers. Japonensis, or Japonicus, are not, however, synonymous with Javanensis or Javanicus; Java and Japan are countries separated by many hundreds of miles of distance, even by many degrees of longitude and latitude. Yet Sir W. Jardine, in the "Naturalist's Library," gives the Pavo Javanensis as the same as the Japan Peacock. His figure imperfectly represents the Java bird, as also does that in Griffith's edition of Cuvier's "Animal Kingdom," although the title "Japan Peacock" is added to it. It is possible that both species may be indigenous in one or both of these respective countries, in which case the specific names are not wrong, but only confused.

I am not aware that any figure of the real Japanned bird has yet been published. Living Japan Pea-fowl are now (June, 1848) to be seen in London. In the Zoolo

gical Gardens they are labelled "Pavo cristatus," as if they were only a variety of the common sort; but Mr. Hunt, the intelligent and experienced head keeper, is inclined to consider them as specifically distinct, an opinion which is also strongly maintained by the Messrs. Baker, the eminent dealers in rare birds. It is for naturalists to decide the point; but if the Japan breed be only a variety, it is a very marked and permanent one, not departing from its character for generation after generation. The Japan Peacock is somewhat less in size than the common, the white patches of naked skin on the cheeks are smaller, the wings are blue-black, edged with metallic green, instead of being mottled like tortoise-shell, the imbricated feathers on the back are smaller and less conspicuous, and the whole colouring of the bird is of a darker tone.

The hen, on the contrary, is very much