﻿PEACOCK. 669 



near two inches long, and brown : irides yellow : on the crown 

 is a kind of creft, cornpofed of twenty- four feathers, fcarcely 

 webbed, except at the ends, which are gilded green ; the ihafts 

 whitifh : the head, neck, and breaft, are green gold : over the eye 

 is a ftreak of white, and beneath it another : the back and rump 

 are green gold, glofled with copper, and the feathers are diftincT - , 

 and lay over each other like fhells : above the tail fprings an in- 

 imitable fet of long beautiful feathers, adorned with a variegated 

 eye at the end of each ; thefe reach confiderably beyond the tail ; 

 and the longeft of them in many birds are four feet and a half in 

 length. This beautiful train, or tail as it is falfely called, may 

 be expanded quite to a perpendicular upwards at the will of the 

 bird. The true tail is hid beneath this group of feathers, and 

 confifts of eighteen grey brown feathers, one foot and a half long, 

 marked on the fides with rufous grey : the fcapulars and lefFer 

 wing coverts are reddifh cream-colour, variegated wich black ; 

 the middle coverts deep blue, gloried with green gold : the 

 greateft and baftard wing rufous: the quills are alfo rufous ; fome 

 of them variegated with rufous, blackiih, and green: the belly and 

 vent are greenilh black : the thighs yellowifh : the legs flout ; 

 thofe of the male furniihed with a ftrong fpur three quarters of an 

 inch in length ; the colour of them grey brown. 



T\\z female is rather lefs. The train is very {hort, much more Female. 



fb than the tail ; fcarcely longer than its coverts, and the feathers 

 not furnifhed with eyes : the creft on the head the fame : the 

 fides of the head have a greater portion of white: the throat and 

 neck green : the reft of the body and wings cinereous brown : 

 the breaft fringed with white: the bill the fame: irides lead- 

 colour: legs as in the male ; but the fpur is generally wanting, 

 though in fome birds a rudiment of one is feen. In fome male 



birds 



