116 PEACOCKS. 



LETTER XLIV. 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ. 



SELBORNE, 1771. 



DEAR SIR, Happening to make a visit to my neighbour's 

 peacocks, I could not help observing, that the trains of those 

 magnificent birds appear by no means to be their tails, those 

 long feathers growing not from their uropygtum, but all up 

 their backs. A range of short, brown, stift' feathers, about six 

 inches long, fixed in the uropygium, is the real tail, and serves 

 as the fulcrum to prop the train, which is long and top-heavy, 

 when set on end. When the train is up, nothing appears of 

 the bird before, but its head and neck ; but this would not be 

 the case, were these long feathers fixed only in the rump, as 

 may be seen by the turkey cock, when in a strutting attitude.* 

 By a strong muscular vibration, these birds can make the 

 shafts of their long feathers clatter like the swords of a sword- 

 dancer ; they then trample very quick with their feet, and run 

 backwards towards the females. 



I should tell you that I have got an uncommon calculus 

 cegogropila, taken out of the stomach of a fat ox. It is per- 

 fectly round, and about the size of a large Seville orange : 

 such are, I think, usually flat. 



LETTER XLV. 



TO THE HON. DAINES HARRINGTON. 



SELBORNE, August 1, 1771. 



DEAR SIR, From what follows, it will appear that neither 

 owls nor cuckoos keep to one note. A friend remarks that 

 many (most) of his owls hoot in B flat ; but that one went 

 almost half a note below A. The pipe he tried their notes 



* The female peacock, like the hen of the domestic fowl and the pheasant, 

 has sometimes been known to assume the plumage of the male. Lady 

 Tynte had a favourite peahen, which at eight several times produced 

 chicks. Having moulted when eleven years old, the lady and her family 

 were astonished by her displaying the feathers peculiar to the other sex, 

 and appearing like a pied peacock. In the process the tail, which was 

 like that of the cock, first appeared. In the following year she moulted 

 again and produced similar feathers ; in the third year she did the same, 

 and then had also spurs resembling those of the cock. The hen never 

 bred after this change of plumage. ED. 



