INDIAN PEAFOWL 



Pavo cristattts Linnaeus 



Names. — Generic : Pavo, Latin, a Peafowl. Specific : cristatiis, Latin, crested. English : Common or 

 Indian Peafowl ; Peacock ; Peahen. French : Paon commun. German : Pfau. Vernacular : Mor (Upper and 

 Central India); Ta-us, Landuri, peahen (Mahratta Districts); Menjur (Western Duars) ; Mujur (Nepal Terai) ; 

 Mabja (Bhutia, Bhutan) ; Mongyung (Lepcha, Bhutan) ; Moir, Moira (Assam) ; Dode (Garro Hills) ; Myl (Tamil) ; 

 Nimili (Telugu) ; Nowl (Canarese, Mysore) ; Mohr, peacock, Bodur, peahen (North-western India) ; Mor, peacock, 

 Morela, peahen (Hindustanee, Lucknow) ; Monara (Ceylon) ; Manir, Nanja, peacock (Uriya, Orissa). 



Type. — Locality: "Habitat in India orientali, Zeylona." Describer : Linn^. Place of Description: Sys. 

 Nat. I. 1766, p. 267. 



Brief Description. — Male : A tall, spatulate crest ; facial skin whitish ; head and neck metallic green, 

 back bronze, upper tail-coverts forming an enormously lengthened train, green with numerous large ocelli, each 

 ringed with blue and bronze ; ventral plumage purplish blue ; closed wings and thighs buff, the former mottled 

 with black ; flight feathers and tail cinnamon brown. Female : Head chestnut ; mantle green, back brown, 

 indistinctly mottled with buff; wing-coverts coarsely mottled with buff and black; throat and fore-neck white; 

 breast brownish black, fringed with greenish ; under parts buff. 



Range. — India, Assam and Ceylon. 



THE BIRD IN ITS WILD HOME 



I CROUCHED low on a hummock of coarse, dried grass. Sprawled flat, I looked 

 through the stems toward the half-filled lagoon in front. Ceylon junglefowl were my 

 object, and hence it was that, instead, I saw my first Peacock. Through the ensuing 

 months I was to learn that the oblique glance was the one that most often counts, 

 and frequently penetrates more deeply into the lives of the wild creatures. So after 

 a few lessons I gave up devoting a day to this or that pheasant. I merely went out 

 with pheasants at the back of my brain, ready for anything which might appear. For 

 as certainly as I sought junglefowl, that trip was sure to be replete with the excitement 

 of Peacocks ; and when I made a dead set for the latter, my trail was certain to cross 

 that of the wilderness poultry. 



I had left my hammock long before dawn, the darkness thinned by the light of 

 Venus shining overhead, outglowing in intensity the silver thread which marked the 

 crescent moon below it. No animals appeared, but deer barked close on either hand. 

 I turned off the trail and entered an open grassy space bordering the lake, which even 

 at this hour showed dully through the dusk, like a field of oxidized silver. The tracker 

 grasped my arm and pointed ahead. I could just make out three objects. He 

 whispered, "Deer." We crept silently on for a few steps, and then realized that the 

 creatures were approaching. The coolie uttered an exclamation of fear and crouched 

 down behind my umbrella tent-bundle. The thought that they might be buffalo, and 

 that there were no trees near, was unnerving enough, for if they should charge blindly 

 at the white man's scent, my pheasant-hunting would end abruptly. Then a second 



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