lis CLASS AVES. 



*' Climate has not less influence on the plumage of birds 

 than on the fur of quadrupeds. We have seen in the pre- 

 ceding volumes, that the hare, the ermine, and most other 

 animals, are subject to become white in cold countries, espe- 

 cially in winter ; and now we find a species of peacock, or, if 

 you will, a variety, which appears to have experienced the 

 same results from the same cause, and more important ones 

 still ; for this cause has produced a permanent race in this 

 species, and seems to have acted more powerfully upon the 

 feathers of this bird, since the whiteness of hares and ermines 

 is but transient, taking place during the winter only, like that 

 of the wood-hen and the lagopus. But the white peacock is 

 always white, in all countries, in summer as in winter, at 

 Rome, as in Torneo ; and this new colour has become so 

 fixed, that from eggs laid and hatched in Italy, come white 

 peacocks."" 



" If we suppose for a moment,"" says M. Temminck, from 

 whom these interesting observations are principally taken, 

 " that a race of white peacocks exist, aborigines of the north, 

 how shall we account for the discovery of these same white 

 birds in India .'' It can hardly be supposed that they were 

 transported from Sweden, into Bengal, or the island of Java." 

 We quote, as a curiosity, another passage on this subject 

 from Buffon, which only proves what an inclination that 

 great man possessed for theory on every topic — 



" It could not be without a considerable lapse of time, and 

 under very singular circumstances, that a bird, native to the 

 genial climes of India, and other parts of Asia, could have 

 grown accustomed to the rough temperature of the north. If 

 not transported thither by men, it might have passed either 

 by the north of Asia, or the north of Europe. Though the 

 era of this migration is not precisely known, I yet suspect 

 that it cannot have been extremely remote !" 



The white peacock could not have formed in the north a 



