20 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXIV. 



After I had learnt their ways I sometimes managed to circum- 

 vent them by getting ont on to the bank and letting the boat float 

 on to within some 200 or 300 yards of the flock. This was near 

 enough to excite their suspicions and intense curiosity, yet not 

 near enough to fiighten them away, and I found the boat so com- 

 pletely occupied their attention that it was sometimes possible to 

 slip round them and get a shot from the opposite direction. Even 

 working it this way, however, I think they had more often than 

 not cleared out before I got past them. A crack of a fallen twig 

 or the rustle of a few dried leaves would have put them on the qui 

 vive and sent them at once into the safety of the bushes. 



It is wonderful the way a cock Peafowl in all the pride of 

 plumage and gorgeous lengthy train will slip through jungle which 

 one would imagine dense enough to stop his movements 

 altogether with s^ich an encumbrance. He seems to be as sinuou.s 

 as a snake in his movement, as stealthy as a cat in his tread, and as 

 wary as an old bull bison in watching for foes. On foot a 

 sportsman has no chance of pressing Peafowl hard enough to induce 

 them to rise, but a small dog very quickly flushes them, and the 

 old cocks, and the hens too, will then rise with a tremendous com- 

 motion and fluster, sometimes flying well away before again land- 

 ing and taking to their legs, sometimes flying straight up into the 

 larger branches of the nearest lofty tree. 



The flight of the Peafowl is generally alluded to in very con- 

 temptuous terms by both naturalists and sportsmen, but, as a 

 matter of fact, once they are on the wing they fly at a very fair 

 pace, andthoughthey make an enormous target, they may be easily 

 missed or tinkered unless a good speed is allowed for. Personalty, 

 the first bird I ever fired at I missed clear through underrating 

 the pace he was going at, the second I tinkered, knocking out most 

 of his long train, whilst the third bird I treated as a pheasant, and 

 with success. 



Unless one is in want of the long train feathers for any purpose, 

 an adult bird is not worth shooting, for they form poor food, being 

 desperately tough and stringy, and by no means delicate in flavour. 

 Birds of the year are, however, excellent eating, especially when 

 they have fed some time in the mustard fields, when they get very 

 fat and tender. 



Peafowl are almost omnivorous in their own diet, and will eat all 

 and any kind of grain, young green crops, insects, small reptiles 

 and mammals and even snakes. They are also much given to swallow- 

 ing small pebbles and grit, and some young birds which I shot on 

 a river bank had their gizzards full of sand mixed with tiny water 

 snails. The latter they had evidently obtained at the edge of the 

 stream, and the sand may have possibly been picked up with them, 

 though more probably it had been taken as a digestive. 



