168 



ANIMALS IN BIENAGERIES. 



its general characteristics may properly be added. The 

 crest has twenty-four lance-shaped feathers, of which 

 the naked shafts represent the handles, and the webbed 

 tips the heads. The body, above, is golden green, glossed 

 with brassy : the wing covers are green gold Avith brassy 

 reflections ; the under parts of the body being dusky. 

 Varied with green gold : the sides of the head have two 

 narrow white stripes — one above, the other below the eye. 

 The superb ocellated spots of the tail covers commence 

 at the lower part of the back ; and the feathers gradually 

 become longer and longer, until they sometimes reach a 

 length of four feet and a half ; in addition to this or- 

 nament, the male is distinguished by a strong sharp spur 

 on the tarsus, nearly an inch long. The female is ra- 

 ther less in size ; its crest is shorter ; and the tail covers 

 are not only destitute of those resplendent spots seen in 

 the other sex, but they are even shorter than the tail 

 itself. 



' The Java Peacock. 



Pavo Javanicus, Horsf. {Fig. 23.) 



This, which is the only other species of peacock yet 

 discovered, is a much rarer bird than that we have just 

 described : so rare, indeed, that although the naturalists 

 of Europe had acquired some ideas of it from the im- 

 perfect account of Aldrovandus, its positive existence 

 only became authenticated at the commencement of the 

 present century ; nor was it until within these few years^ 

 that two living specimens, sent from the Burmese terri- 

 tory, were presented by lord Holmesdale to the menagerie 

 of the Zoological Society of London. Aldrovandus, in 

 fact, acquired all his knowledge of this interesting bird 

 from two drawings which were among the presents sent 

 by the then emperor of Japan to the pope. Another 

 drawing, also made in the same country, was sent to 

 Dr. Shaw, who published it in his Naturalist's Miscellany, 

 But still no specimen of the bird itself was known to 

 exist in Europe, until Dr. Horsneld procured it in Java. 



