PAVO 

 PEAFOWL 



Order GALLIFORMES 

 Family PHASIANIDAE 



Subfamily PAVONINAE 

 Genus PA VO 



Peacocks and Peahens have been familiar to mankind since the Phoenicians 

 brought them from India to the Pharaohs of Egypt. I have put these birds in a 

 separate subfamily on account of the character of the tail moult, which typically is from 

 the sixth from the central pair outward. 



Peafowl are large, strong birds, the males brilliantly metallic in colour, with an 

 extraordinary development of the lower back feathers and upper tail coverts, which are 

 ocellated and form an enormous train. The female in one species is almost as bright 

 as the male, while in the other she is rather dull brown and whitish. 



There is an erect, specialized crest ; the first primary is much shorter than the 

 tenth, the fifth being the longest. The tail is wedge-shaped and composed of twenty 

 feathers. The males are armed with stout spurs. 



Peafowl are exceedingly abundant in certain parts of India, where they are con- 

 sidered sacred. They are gregarious, living in flocks, and the voice is a very loud, 

 discordant scream. The flight is strong in spite of the handicap of the heavy train, 

 and in their wilder haunts Peafowl invariably seek safety in the tops of the highest 

 trees. 



Four to eight eggs are laid, usually at the base of a log or tree, with very little 

 attempt at a nest. The courtship is elaborate, frontal, and consists of a raising of the 

 train and the audible rattling of the quills of the tail feathers. 



Peafowl form a distinctly isolated group, and we have no idea of their line of 

 ancestry. The femoro-caudal muscle, for example, is absent in Pavo and in Meleagris, 

 while present in all other gallinaceous birds ; the syrinx in Pavo is simpler than in any 

 others of its family. 



PAVO 



Type 



Pavo, Linne, S.N. I. 1766, p. 267 C. cristatus. 



Pavianus, Rafinesque, Analyse, 1815, p, 219 . . . . . . . . C. cristatus. 



Spiciferus, Bonap. C R. XLII. 1856, p. 878 C. vmticus. 



VOL. IV 161 Y 



