her nest; nor, if the eggs are disturbed, will she go there again. She lays from four or five to seven. If these are taken, she will frequently lay a second time during the summer, and the plan is to be recommended to those who are anxious to increase their stock. She sits from twentyseven to twenty-nine days. A common Hen will hatch and rear the young; but the same objection lies against her performing that office, except in very fine long summers, for the Pea-fowl, as for Turkeys; namely, that the poults require to be brooded longer than the Hen is able conveniently to do so. A Turkey will prove a much better foster-mother in every respect. The Peahen should of course be permitted to take charge of one set of eggs. Even without such assistance she will be tolerably successful. Those students of poultry who carefully read the "Guinea-fowl" and the "Turkey," and industriously carry the instructions there given into practice, will have no difficulty in rearing Pea-chicks. A friend writes,"As soon as the young could be decoyed into a shed or house, we always caught them, and gave to each poult three black peppercorns." I only mention the practice for the sake of condemning it; and must most decidedly, though deferentially, recommend that it be omitted, according to the rational theory of poultry-rearing. They are engaging little things, most elegant in appearance, and very tame and confident. I have heard of one reared under a Hen, that would sit upon the hand to peck flies from a window. The same wise provision of nature to be noticed in the Guinea-fowl, is evinced in a still greater degree in the little Pea-chicks. Their native jungle, tall, dense, sometimes impervious, swarming with reptile, quadruped, and even insect enemies, would be a most dangerous habitation for a little tender thing that could run and squat merely. Accordingly they escape from the egg with their quill feathers very highly developed. In three days they will fly up and perch upon any thing three feet high; in a fortnight they will roost on trees or the tops of sheds, and at a month or six weeks you would

see them on the ridge of a barn, if there were any intermediate low stables or other building that would help them to mount from one to the other. It must be a clever snake that would get at the cunning little rogues when they were once perched on the feathery branch of a bamboo. Old birds received from a distance are difficult to settle in a new home. Housing they do not like, and will scarcely bear. Most liberal feeding is the best bond of attachment, but even with that they will unexpectedly be off, and will perhaps be stopped on the high road, like other suspicious vagrants. Were I myself to recommence keeping them, I would procure a sitting of eggs, place them under a Turkey hen, and have the 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 withou tany 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

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

Num esuriens fastidis omnia præter

Pavonem rhombumque ?"-HORACE, Serm. I. 2. "Should hunger on your gnawing entrails seize,

Will Turbot only or a Peacock please ?"-FRANCIS.

"Quintus Hortensius was the first who gave the Romans a taste for

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 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; the legs are of a dusky yellowish tinge.

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. 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

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 cœnam dedi sine pavone.' M. Aufidius Latro made a prodigious fortune by fattening them for sale." -FRANCIS, Note to Serm. II. 2.

parents were both of the usual colours, there were two of the common sort, and one White cock and one White hen.

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 represents the Java bird, as also does that in Griffith's