OF SELBOENE. Ill 



LETTER XXXY. 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. 



SELBORNE, 1771. 



LPPENING to make a visit to my neigh- 

 bour'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 uropy- 

 i, but all up their backs. 1 A range of short brown stiff 

 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 those 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 back- 

 wards towards the females. 



I should tell you that I have got an uncommon calculus 

 agagropila, taken out of the stomach of a fat ox ; it is 

 perfectly round, and about the size of a large Seville orange ; 

 such are, I think, usually flat. 



1 The peafowl is not the only bird in which the feathers of different 

 parts sometimes assume the appearance of a tail. Familiar instances 

 of this peculiarity are found in some of the cranes, notably in the Stanley 

 crane, and in the beautiful Trogon resplcndens of Central America.- 

 ED. 



