

182 THE PEA FOWL. 



of feeding on the plant, and he speaks of the beauty 

 of the scene as enchanting, and so indeed it must have 

 been ; for he adds, " I speak within bounds when I 

 assert that there could not be less than twelve or 

 fifteen hundred pea fowls of various sizes within sight 

 of the spot where I stood for near an hour." 



The common peacock was, till lately supposed to be 

 the only species of its genus ; but both preserved and 

 living specimens of the Aldrovandine pea fowl, which, 

 for a long while, was supposed fabulous, have been 

 recently introduced into England. But there is also a 

 third sort, which, on account of the confusion of 

 synonymes, has not received from naturalists the atten- 

 tion it deserves. The difficulty has been increased by 

 the conversion of "Japan" into "japanned" by some 

 writers. Japonensis, or Japonicus, are not, however, 

 synonymous with Javanensis nor Javanicus ; Java 

 and Japan are countries separated by many hundreds 

 of miles of distance, even by many degrees of lati- 

 tude and longitude. Yet Sir W. Jardine, in the " Na- 

 turalist's Library" gives the Pavo Javanensis as the 

 same as the Japan peacock. His figure represents the 

 Java bird, as also does that in Griffith's edition of 

 Cuvier's " Animal Kingdom," although the title 

 " Japan Peacock" is added to it. It is possible that 

 both species may be indigenous in one or both of these 

 respective countries, in which case, the specific names 

 are not wrong, but only confused. 



The Japan peacock is somewhat less in size than 

 the common, the white patches of naked skin on the 

 cheeks are smaller, the wings are blue-black, edged with 

 metallic-green instead of being mottled like tortoise 

 shell, the imbricated feathers on the back are smaller 

 and less conspicuous, and the whole coloring of the 

 bird is of a darker tone. The hen, on the contrary, 

 is much lighter than the common sort, with a tendency 

 to spangled, perhaps even ocellated, plumage all over 

 her body, and she has scarcely any glistening feathers 

 on the neck ; her size is also inferior, and her propor- 

 tions more slender. 



