70 OUR DOMESTIC FOWLS. 



tlcnly surprised, is out of siglit in a moment. 

 Besides man, many are the enemies of this 

 beautiful bird, among wbicli, the tiger, the 

 leopard, and others of the feline race, are to be 

 enumerated. In Ceylon, the natives assert 

 that it often falls a prey to the slender loris, 

 (loris ffracilis) a small nocturnal animal of the 

 Lemurine family, of arboreal habits, "While 

 the pea-fowl sleeps on its perch, its insidious 

 foe creeps slowly and noiselessly towards it, 

 and suddenly seizes it by the neck, which it 

 clutches with such tenacity that the bird, 

 fluttering in the agony of strangulation, drops 

 from its perch to the ground, with its foe still 

 clinging. Here it soon expires, and the loris 

 devours its brains, leaving the rest of the body 

 untouched. Colonel Sykes states that " the 

 wild pea-fowl is abundant in the dense woods 

 of the Ghauts : it is readily domesticated, 

 and many Hindoo temples in the Dukhun have 

 considerable flocks of them. On a comparison 

 with the bird domesticated in Europe, the 

 latter is found both male and female to be 

 absolutely identical with the wild bird of 

 India." In the passes of the Jungletery, 

 colonel Williamson found these birds in great 

 numbers, and the woods were strewed with 



