ORDEll GALLlNiE. 137 



the viches which the cargoes of these vessels contained. We 

 are informed by Pliny, that the orator Hortensius was the 

 first Roman who had a peacock killed for his table, when 

 he entertained the College of Pontiffs at a sumptuous ban- 

 quet. The first who bred and fattened peacocks for culinary 

 purposes was Aufidius Lurcon, towards the time of the last 

 war of the pirates ; by this means, he procured a revenue of 

 sixty thousand sesterces. In the feasts of the Emperors 

 Vitellius and Heliogabalus, enormous dishes were frequently 

 served up, composed of ragouts of the tongues of peacocks 

 and their brains : the first of these emperors was habituated 

 ^o term a dish of this description, the Shield of Minerva. 

 Buffon says, that at first they were very rare in Europe ; at 

 Athens, they Avere exhibited, during thirty years, at every 

 feast of the new moon, as an object of curiosity, and people 

 used to run in crowds from the neighbouring towns and cities 

 to behold them, — from Lacederaon, Thessaly, and Boeotia. 

 This was after the time of Alexander ; for that hero, though 

 well acquainted with Greece, had never seen them until he 

 marched into India, where he found them flying wild on the 

 banks of the Hyarotis, and was so struck with their beauty 

 that he decreed a severe punishment on all who killed or dis- 

 turbed them. Towards the latter end of his reign they had 

 so greatly multiplied in Greece, that Aristotle, who survived 

 his pupil only two years, speaks of them being perfectly well 

 known in that country. 



M. Temminck had an opportunity of examining two males 

 of the wild peacock ; one was sent to him alive from Batavia, 

 and the other was in a menagerie in this capital; these birds 

 resembled each other perfectly, and were as familiar as the 

 domestic peacocks. 



In brilliancy of plumage the wild peacock stands unrivalled 

 among tlie feathered race. Vainly should we attempt to put 

 any other species in competition with him in these attributes 



