140 CLASS AVES. 



almost over their entire length only rare and detached barbs. 

 The bill is convex, thick, and of the same form as that of gal- 

 linaceous birds in general ; the apertures of the nostrils are 

 ample, and the feet of the male have but a single, very thick 

 spur, nine lines long, terminating in a sharp point. But 

 the characteristic trait which distinguishes the peacock from 

 all other genera of the numerous family of the gallinas, is the 

 singular length of the upper tail-coverts, they being more 

 elongated than the quills themselves : the feathers of this 

 sort of false tail have their tubes furnished with disunited 

 barbs, terminated by other barbs adhering one to another, 

 ornamented with long fringes through their contour, and form- 

 ing an extended vane, marked in the centre with an eye-like 

 spot. 



A brilliant green, lustred over with gold, and changing 

 into a bright blue, covers the head, the throat, the neck, 

 and chest. On each side of the head are two long white 

 spots ; one passes above the eye, and the other, which is 

 shorter, and much broader, below. The tips of the feathers 

 of the aigrette, are adorned with the same mixture of rich 

 colours as the top of the head. Their divided and shaven 

 barbs are blackish. The feathers of the back and rump, are 

 of a very splendid golden-green, glossed with copper-coloured 

 reflexions. A circle of velvety black terminates and edges 

 these feathers, which by their arrangement and position repre- 

 sent the scales of fishes. In the numerous and long upper 

 tail-coverts, divided into several ranks, placed one above 

 the other, the stem is white, and furnished from the origin to 

 the extremity of the feather with long divided barbs of a 

 brilliant golden-green, with cupreous reflexions. The barbs 

 imite at the end of these feathers, and form a vane, at the 

 centre of which is the eye-spot, whose middle is a heart-shaped 

 velvety black spot, surrounded with a circle of green, with a 

 blue and violet reflection. This again is encompassed with 



