PEA FOWL. 349 



or any other feathered beauty, but nothing can equal the mag- 

 nificence of a Peacock in full flight, sweeping across a sheet of 

 water, or glancing in the sunbeams among the topmost branches 

 of a fir-tree. 



A second objection to them is their alleged wanton de- 

 struetiveness towards the young of other Poultry,* a propen- 

 sity respecting which I have heard and readf such contradic- 

 tory statements, that they can only be reconciled by the hy- 

 pothesis that the Peacock becomes more cruel as he advances 

 in life, and also that males of this species vary in disposition ; 

 that, as the human race has produced examples of such diverse 

 tempers, so the Peacock family includes individuals of different 

 degrees of blood-thirstiness. My own bird, three years old, 

 was perfectly inoifensive ; others have, been mentioned to me 

 equally pacific. On the other hand, the list of murders un- 

 doubtedly committed is long and heavy. The friend* before 

 mentioned says, "I have known them. kill from twelve to 

 twenty ducklings, say from a week to a fortnight old, during 

 one day ; but if they came across a brood of young Chicks or 

 Ducklings a few days old, they would destroy the whole of 

 them." And yet, in the face of all this condemnatory evidence, t 



* Columella gives a fanciful reason for keeping Hens that have fa- 

 milies of Chickens from coming near Peahens that have broods, which 

 relieves the latter at least from all blame. "Authors are sufficiently 

 agreed that other Hens, which are rearing young of their own kind, 

 ought not to feed in the same place. For after they have seen the 

 brood of the Pea Fowl, they cease to cherish their own, and desert 

 them while still immature, clearly hating them, because neither in 

 size nor beauty are they comparable to the Peacock." Book vii., 

 chap. xi. 



f See the " Penny Cyclopedia," article Pavonidee : " I have never 

 kept Pea Fowl, nor seen Chicks just hatched, but have witnessed the 

 abominable cruelty of the father of the family in knocking a whole 

 brood of them on the head, when nearly a quarter grown." H. H. 



