The Peacock's Train and Love-Dance 



WHAT object is served by the glorious train of the 

 peacock ? 



No doubt he is proud of it, and delights in showing 

 it off, in all its beauty of colour, while dancing and 

 strutting, in the love-season, before the modest pea-hen. 



But the train, strange as it seems, serves a purpose 

 of concealment. On a white terrace in this country 

 it shows up vividly from afar ; but when in summer a 

 peacock leaves his garden home, and flies up into a 

 tree in a wood near by, you may then see how wonder- 

 fully the glorious colours blend in with the golden- 

 green sunlit foliage. 



In the peacock's jungle home in the tropics, full of 

 lights and colours, fruits and flowers, all the varied 

 hues of the bird mingle with his surroundings. He 

 looks perhaps like some beautiful flowering shrub 

 himself, so that the eyes of the beast of prey may 

 pass him over. 



This has been pointed out by a great naturalist- 

 painter, Abbot H. Thayer. He has shown also how 

 the peacock's burnished neck, seen from below when 

 the bird is in the trees, is a brilliant blue, like a part 

 of the tropical sky ; but when looked down upon 

 from above, displays green lights, which melt in with 

 the green of the grass, and so hide the bird from a bird 

 of prey above. 



All colours and patterns of birds and beasts, he 

 would have us believe, serve for concealment. 



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