/2 OUn DOMESTIC FOAVLS. 



Miruris quoties gemmantes explicat alas, 

 Et poles hunc scevo Iradere, dure ccquo." 



You are filled with admiration as often as it unfolds its gemmed 



plumes ; 

 And can you, hard-hearted, deliver this to the merciless cook ? 



The pea-fowl figured in the feasts of Hor- 

 jtensius and otlier sensualists ; but how lavishly 

 'must it have been slaughtered for the emperor 

 Vetellius, one of whose favourite dishes, called 

 the buckler of Minerva, was prepared with 

 the livers of scare,* the tongues of flamingoes, 

 and the brains of peacocks. It is very 

 probable that we owe the introduction of 

 the pea-fowl into our island to the Romans. 

 Its name in Saxon pawa, in Belgic pauw, 

 in Teutonic ^)/a?<, and in French paon, are 

 evidently mere corruptions of the Latin pavo 

 (pronounced most likely pawo) itself a cor- 

 ruption of the Greek raatv (taon). Like the 



* A fish, scarus crcticus. " The Archipelago (between Greece 

 and Asia Minor) says Cuvier, possesses a species (of scarus) 

 of a blue or red colour according to the season. It is the 

 scarus creticus of Aldrovandus, and after fresh researches 

 appears to me to be the true scarus so celebrated among the 

 ancients, and which under the reign of Claudius, Elipertius 

 Optatus, commander of a Roman fleet, went to procure in 

 Greece, in order to naturalize it in seas of Italy. It is eaten at 

 the present time in Greece, its intestines being seasoned." 



