158 INDIAN SPOETING BIRDS 



Peacock. 



Pavo cristatus. Mor, Hindustani. 



India and Ceylon are the native and only homes of the 

 common peacock, a bird so well known in domestication every- 

 where that there would really be no need to describe it were 

 it not for the sake of pointing out some sexual, varietal, and 

 specific distinctions. 



With regard to the first, everyone knows that the peahen is 

 a plain brown bird without the cock's long train, but it should 

 be noted that she has a similar crest, a good deal of green on the 

 neck, and the under-parts dirty-white. The young cock in his 

 first year is very like her, but can be known at once, if put on 

 the wing, by the bright cinnamon pinion-quills, the first sign of 

 the masculine plumage to be fully developed ; though even at this 

 early age the neck is more glossy and bluer than the hen's, and 

 the pencilling of the wings is indicated. 



In the next year the full rich blue of the neck and the distinct 

 chequering of black and buff on the wings are developed, together 

 with the scale-like golden feathers between the shoulders. The 

 train, however, is foreshadowed only by some beautiful bronze- 

 green feathers overhanging most of the tail, but without eyes 

 or fringes, and quite short. In the next year the full train is 

 assumed, and no further change takes place, except that for 

 some years it lengthens a little. The age of the birds can 

 therefore not be judged for more than a few years, but there 

 is good reason to believe that it may reach a century in captivity, 

 though such a long life is hardly within the expectation of the 

 wild peacock, with all the risks he has to run. Chicks have the 

 brown down, streaked with darker, so commonly found among 

 the true game-birds; in the brown chicken-feather they have 

 the long narrow crest of the other species, the Burinese or 

 Javan peafowl. They begin to show off when as small as a 

 partridge, or smaller. 



In the so-called Pavo nigripennis, the black-winged or Japan 

 peafowl, which has not been found wild in Japan or anywhere 

 else — with the exception of a hen once shot in the Doon and 

 seen in the skin by Hume — the cock has those parts of the wings 



