Green Peafowl 



The green peafowl, a species quite distinct from the more familiar common pea- 

 fowl, is one of the largest and finest of all birds. The male, with its fine train, may 

 measure seven feet in length, and the female, without a train, about four feet. In 

 color and pattern, with a metallic green ground color ocellated and marked with blue 

 and coppery yellow, and with a long ocellated train, it is a gorgeous creature. As with 

 its cousin, the blue peacock, often domesticated, the train of ornamental feathers 

 borne by the male is not the tail. It is formed by specially elongated upper tail coverts, 

 which can be erected and spread into a great fan, supported by the short stifT tail 

 feathers and used in courtship displays to the female. 



The green peafowl, rarely seen in captivity, lives in and near the jungles of Indo- 

 China, Malaya, Burma, and Java. The exhibit shows the peacock and his mate 

 perched on a dead branch above the tropical forests of Annam, in Indo-China. Pea- 

 fowl spend the night roosting in tall trees, and morning and evening their loud calls 

 ring through the forest. The call has been variously described; one version refers to it as 

 a loud discordant squall audiijlc at a great distance and sounding like the cry of a 

 tomcat in distress. The birds feed on the ground, sometimes walking out into the fields, 

 and parties of birds often mix with the herds of domestic buffalo. Where much hunted 

 the peacock becomes very shy and runs rapidly to a great distance, readily outdistanc- 

 ing a man on foot. 



Little seems to be known of its breeding habits, but the species is polygamous, parties 

 of a cock and four or five hens being common. The nest, unlike that of the blue Indian 

 peafowl, is usually placed under a bush in a clearing where the three to five tawny eggs 

 are laid. 



The specimens for the group were collected by the late Wilfred H. Osgood, Chief 

 Curator of Zoology, 1921-40, during an expedition financed by himself. 



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