BURMESE PEAFOWL 161 



for several months ; but they can be shot on the roost in the wild 

 state, though only need of food ought to drive anyone to this. 

 The buff eggs, by the wa}', about half a dozen of which are laid, 

 generally in the rains and on the ground, are most excellent. 



It must be admitted, however, that peafowl are not by any 

 means friends to the farmer and forester, as they are destructive 

 to grain, herbage, flowers, and buds ; most of their food is, in fact, 

 vegetable, but they also, to their credit, consume various insects 

 and other vermin, including young snakes. They are as good to 

 eat as turkeys, if yearlings are taken, and a yearling cock can 

 always be picked out, as I said above, by his cinnamon quills. 

 Young hens have slightly redder quills than old ones, and are 

 a little pencilled on the feathers over the tail. As the cock is 

 three years old by the time he is in full colour, one can only 

 expect him to be tough, as any ordinary rooster would be ; but of 

 course he is good for soup. 



The peacock of course has names in all the native languages, 

 and sometimes the cock and hen have different ones ; thus in 

 Uriya Manja is the cock and Mania the hen; in Mahratta there 

 is a still greater difference, the cock being Tans, very close to 

 the Greek Taos, and the hen Landuri ; the Assamese Moir comes 

 very near the Hindustani name, which has also the variant 

 Manjar ; Notvl is the name in Canarese, Nimili in Jeluga, Mijl 

 in Tamil ; the Lepcha word is Morcj-yiing and the Bhotanese 

 Mahja, while the Garos use Bode, and the Nepalese Monara. 



Burmese Peafowl. 



Pavo mutictis. Daung, Burmese. 



This Eastern species of peafowl, the only relative and rival 

 of our old friend which figures on a small scale below it on 

 the plate, is also well known in its way from Japanese art, 

 in which it is the only form of peafowl represented ; many 

 people must have noticed that the Japanese artist's peafowl have 

 long narrow crests and neck-feathers as clearly defined as the 

 scales of a fish ; and these points are indeed characteristic of both 

 sexes of the Burmese bird, as well as the predominant green 

 colour of the neck and the plumage generally, on account of which 

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