THE PEA- FOWL. 8 I 



Start and a pufT, and a short run forward, as if something had 

 exploded unpleasantly close behind him. These are all blan- 

 dishments, we are told, to allure the female, and doubtless 

 have a most fascinating effect." 



Mr. Sanderson writes as follows : — '' Pea-Fowl run very fast, 

 but the old cocks, burthened with tails six feet in length, are 

 poor flyers, and I have frequently seen my men run them down 

 during the hot- hours of the day by forcing them to take two or 

 three long flights in succession, in places where they could be 

 driven from one detached patch of jungle to another. 



" The old cocks are in full plumage from June to December, 

 and then cast their trains. 



"Pea-Fowl are, perhaps, the most wary of all jungle crea- 

 tures. In beating for large game, where the sportsmen are 

 posted ahead in trees, their presence may pass undetected by 

 other animals, but rarely by Pea-Fowl." 



A well-knowai variety of the Common Pea-Fowl is that 

 described by Latham [Gen. Hist. viii. p. 114 (1823)] under 

 the name of the Black-Shouldered Peacock, and subsequently 

 named Pavo nigf-ipciuiis by Dr. Sclater (P. Z. S. i860, p. 221). 

 This form differs from the male of typical P, cristatus in having 

 the lesser and median wing-coverts, shoulder-feathers, and inner 

 secondary quills brownish-blacky more or less glossed with 

 purple and edged with green, with only traces of buff mottlings 

 on some of the secondaries, the primary quills and their coverts 

 being black along the shaft and margin of the ijinerweb^ and the 

 thighs black. 



Although this variety closely resembles the male hybrids 

 between P. cristatus and the following species P. niuticus, it 

 has been clearly shown that it arises independently in flocks 

 of Common Pea-Fowl which have been pure-bred for many 

 years, and there can be no doubt that it is merely a sport of 

 nature, possibly due to atavism or reversion to the ancestral 

 type, from which both the Common and Burmese Pea-Fowl 

 have sprung. The male is well figured by Mr. Elliot [Monogr. 



12 G 



