THE PHARISEE OF THE JUNGLE 129 
its feathers, This ingredient of the menu must have 
afforded the Roman cooks grand opportunities of in- 
dulging in a little sharp practice. I suspect that the 
same feathers used to do service a great many times and 
often ornamented dishes composed of game humbler 
than the peacock, 
We are told that one Marcus Aufidius Lurco dis- 
covered how to fatten peafowl, and, in quite a short 
time, earned 60,000 sesterces at this occupation. In the 
Middle Ages peacock pie was a dish served up at every 
grand feast. The pie took the shape of the bird. The 
head and train protruded from the crust, and the beak 
was gilded. 
Medieval knights used to swear by the peacock. 
Later on men took to swearing by peacock pie. “By 
cock and pie, sir,” said Justice Shallow, “you shall not 
go away to-night.” 
A mistaken, but widespread fancy attributes to pea- 
fowl very ungainly legs, of which the bird is supposed 
to be heartily ashamed. Solomon appears to have 
inaugurated the idea, and the rest of the world ac- 
cepted it. 
“The peacock,” said a medieval writer, “is a bird 
well known and much admired for his daintie coloured 
feathers, which when he spreads them against the sunne, 
have a curious lustre, and look like gemmes. Howbeit 
his black feet make him ashamed of his tail. And, 
therefore, when he seeth them (as angrie with nature 
or grieved for that deformitie) he hangeth down his 
starrie plumes, and walketh slowly in a discontented fit of 
solitary sadnesse, like one possest with dull melancholie.” 
K 
