162 INDIAN SPOETING BIRDS 



it is sometimes called the green peacock. The long lance-head 

 shaped crest has given the bird one of its scientific names, Pavo 

 spicifer, and the dealers at home often call it the " specifer 

 peacock." In this species the bare skin of the face is much more 

 extended than in the Indian peacock, and is richly coloured with 

 orange-yellow on the jaws and cheeks and mauve-blue round the 

 eyes. The train is very like that of the common peacock, but 

 the wings are black in both sexes, and both have cinnamon 

 pinion-quills. In fact, fine hens of this species are almost exactly 

 like cocks, except of course for having no train ; and they likewise 

 lack the scale-like shoulder patch, which is greener and less gold 

 in this species than in the other, but they have dark under-parts 

 like the cocks. Yearling cocks already have the green short tail- 

 coverts which the ordinary bird does not get till the second year 

 and are so like old hens that the only reliable distinction is the 

 colour of the little patch of feathers that breaks the bare facial 

 skin between bill and eye ; this is rusty brown even in the best 

 hens, and deep glossy green in any cock. A similar difference 

 may be observed in this patch in common peafowl. As hens of 

 the Burmese bird have spurs as a regular thing, they are of no 

 use as a sex distinction. 



In the second year the Burmese pea cockerel assumes the 

 scaly scapular patch and an especial mark of masculinity, a lovely 

 blue patch near the pinion-joint of the wing, an area which is 

 always green in the hen : in the third he gets his full train, so 

 his development is really much like that of his Western cousin in 

 point of stages, though he starts with an advantage. 



The note is, however, strikingly different in this bird, being 

 six-syllabled and very subdued and unobtrusive. The bird itself, 

 however, is not by any means so in captivity, for he is extremely 

 spiteful and a most dangerous bird to have about where there 

 are children and infirm people, while his unexpected attacks are 

 not pleasant for anyone. Yet he is quite susceptible of attach- 

 ment to individuals, and the young birds and hens are charmingl}' 

 tame. The cock also chiefly shows his fierce temper when in 

 possession of his full train, showing a curious analogy to deer, 

 which are chiefly dangerous when possessing their horns. 



The range of this peafowl begins where that of the common 



