ORDER gallin;e. 143 



The young pea-chicks rarely follow the mother to elevated 

 situations until four weeks have elapsed. About this time 

 the aigrette commences to appear, and then great care ought 

 to be taken of the young, not only in relation to the maladies 

 to which they are liable at this epoch of their life, but also 

 because, towards this time, they begin to peck at each other, 

 and the strong will drive away or dispatch the weaker. The 

 young peacocks, which have been hatched by a hen or turkey, 

 should be accustomed to perch as soon as the facility of flying 

 will permit them, the earth being too cold for these young 

 birds, when they are so large as not to be sheltered under the 

 wings of their adopted mother. 



Until the second year, the male and female have the same 

 plumage. In the third year the long dorsal plumes of the 

 male begin to appear, and it is then that they commence to 

 wheel the tail, and exhibit the instinct of re-production. 

 They will sometimes, indeed, couple in the second year ; but 

 usually without any effect. The pea-hen does not begin to 

 lay until the third year. When the young are sick, they are 

 cured as other poultry, especially by giving them insects, 

 meal-worms, flies, the larvae of ants, spiders, and grass- 

 hoppers, from which the feet must be removed. 



The peacock, properly speaking, has no crop ; still the 

 food receives its first maceration in the dilatation of the oeso- 

 phagus. At a short distance from the stomach, a glandulous 

 knot, or gangli, has been observed, filled with small canals, 

 which furnish a great abundance of viscous and gastric 

 juices. The stomach is furnished externally with a number 

 of slender attenuated fibres. Bartolinus says, that he found 

 in one of these birds two gall bladders, while there was but a 

 single pancreatic duct, which, in birds in general, is usually 

 double. The coecum is double, and directed from back to 

 front ; its length equals that of all the other intestines taken 

 together, and it is more wide and capacious. 



