INDIAN PEAFOWL 167 



above sea-level. Strangely enough, it is unusually amenable to acclimatization in even 

 cold temperate regions, and can resist long periods of frost and live unprotected 

 throughout severe, snowy winters without showing any signs of discomfort. It is by 

 nature truly tropical, and I have seen it walking about unconcernedly in the sun with 

 the thermometer 147° Fahrenheit. 



There is a record of its occurrence at Cook's Hill, on the north-east slope of the 

 Nilgiris, at an elevation of five thousand feet. But this is well to the south, and a still 

 more extreme elevation, relatively speaking, is at Bilaspur, west of Simla, where it has 

 been shot at four thousand feet. I could find no reliable records of absolutely wild birds 

 higher than the first-mentioned height. In Ceylon, a Peacock at twenty-five hundred 

 feet is extremely rare, and in the Himalayas, such as Gahrwal, Nepal and Darjeeling, 

 though it is abundant throughout the terai foothills and penetrates well up the river 

 valleys, two thousand feet is usually the limit of its range. In a resume, such as this, a 

 single extreme record may give a false impression to the whole general summary, and I 

 would call attention to the fact that all the above figures represent the haunts of a very 

 small fraction — almost negligible — of the wild Peafowl, and the vast body of the species 

 spends its life but little above the level of the sea. 



Within the limits of its range it is pretty regularly distributed, and is found 

 inhabiting regions of widely different physical character. Its favourite haunt is jungle 

 in more or less broken country, with at least occasionally high trees, with water and 

 cultivation in the vicinity. On the other hand, Peafowl thrive in many rocky and semi- 

 arid districts, and in semi-desert regions where the only vegetation is cactus, acacias and 

 euphorbias. Aside from the fact that their range has been greatly extended by artificial 

 introduction, these birds take instant advantage of favourable changes initiated by man. 

 Hume says that the canals of Upper India, with their grass and tree-clad banks, are 

 favourite abiding-places of these birds. In a day's journey along a newly-opened-out 

 canal, hardly a dozen birds would be seen. Ten years later, if one passed along the 

 same place, the canal now being lined with grass and well-grown trees, several scores of 

 Peafowl would be visible in every three-mile stretch between two bridges. 



Indian Peafowl are not as sedentary as their green-necked brethren, but even they 

 seem to wander but little, and when protected by general religious scruples, the same 

 individuals, marked in some unmistakable way, have been known to haunt a temple 

 compound for several decades. The females seem to wander more than the males, this 

 being especially true after the breeding season, when the young birds require an 

 abundance and variety of food. Away from the haunts of man, while there is never any 

 migration due to temperature, there is occasionally a general shifting and concentration 

 incident upon the ripening of certain edible fruits. And even where they come for food 

 to the vicinity of villages and temples, I have heard more than once of this habit of 

 migration. In one case where about one hundred birds were accustomed to come out of 

 the jungle in late afternoon and take the food thrown out for them, when a small, soft, 

 yellow fruit came into season the number of the birds would for a few weeks be reduced 

 to a quarter. When the others returned, it was said they were excessively fat, and after 

 this it was not uncommon to find the feathers of these birds here and there in the jungle, 

 quite plain evidence that their obesity had caused them to fall victims to their enemies. 

 Another cause for seasonal shifting is a year of unusual drought — only too common a 



