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CHAPTER XXL 



PEA FOWL. 



IN presenting this splendid Bird to the notice of the reader, 

 I have only to say, that Mr. Croome has faithfully and beau- 

 tifully portrayed it, and that Mr. Dixon admirably describes 

 it. After speaking of the perfection of its combination of 

 grace and beauty, he says : 



The causes which disincline many persons from indulging 

 themselves with the daily spectacle of this inapproachable 

 model of beauty, are, in the first place, the depredations that 

 it commits upon gardens. For this, there is no help. The 

 dislike which these birds have to enter a fowl-house, and their 

 decided determination to roost on trees or lofty buildings, pre- 

 vents our exercising a control which should restrain them from 

 mischief, till an eye can be kept upon their movements. At 

 the first dawn, or at the most unsuspected moments, they will 

 steal off to their work of plunder. With great conveniences 

 for keeping them in their proper places, I was compelled to 

 choose between the alternative of banishing a very perfect and 

 familiar pair, or of depriving my children of strawberries. A 

 friend, who has been well acquainted with their habits for 

 years, informs me, as the result of his experience, that their 

 cunning is such, that, if frequently driven away from the gar- 

 den at any particular hour of the day or evening, after a cer- 



