172 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



mutual choice of similar environments. On the other hand, there may be truth in this 

 to the extent that the quick sight and consequent perception of danger by the Peafowl 

 and its simultaneous warning cry, giving the alarm to all the creatures of the jungle, 

 might be of tremendous advantage to the great cats. They, dependent on scent, and 

 confined to the floor stratum of the jungle, would be enabled to slink off and escape 

 detection by hunters and their beaters, who otherwise would be able at least to locate 

 the animals. Unless surprised in jungle so dense that escape by flight is impossible, 

 there is little slinking on the part of the Peacock. His object, after having sensed 

 danger, is to get up to a point of vantage, where he can watch the further approach of 

 the suspicious object, diagnoses it from this safe distance, and lay his subsequent course 

 accordingly. 



Unlike any other wild pheasant or junglefowl, the Peacock can boast friendships 

 with mankind at least in certain parts of his haunts. And he responds at once, both 

 taking an ungentlemanly advantage of this immunity in working occasional havoc with 

 fields of grain, but coming in flocks of many scores to be fed, and fearlessly nesting and 

 rearing young in close proximity to the native villages. I shall go into this in greater 

 detail under the division of Relation to Mankind. 



The Peacock is well armed with sharp spurs, and in spite of the great handicap of 

 feathers, it is well able to defend itself against the commoner dangers of the jungle. 

 Few of the smaller carnivorous mammals and birds of prey are able to face and over- 

 power it. Jackals and martens probably take toll now and then, and the great hawk 

 eagles certainly kill them. These latter strike the Peafowl when they are in the open, 

 and hence it is that when feeding in open spaces, the birds will always keep glancing 

 upward. When one of these fierce birds is seen, the Peafowl make one sudden rush to 

 cover, reversing for once their method of escape. 



In many parts of the East the natives firmly believe that the slow loris is one of 

 the most inveterate foes of Peafowl. It is thought that through all the night this little 

 creature searches slowly, remorselessly, for his victim, and when found he creeps care- 

 fully up the back of the sleeping bird, and twining his skinny arms about its neck, 

 clings on until he has bitten into and eaten the brain. Leopards and tigers doubtless 

 keep the ranks of these birds thinned to a certain proportion-, and are probably the most 

 dreaded of all their enemies, disregarding the hostile humans who sadly decimate the 

 ranks of these beautiful creatures. 



Again we may compare the argus and the Peacock; the one handicapped by a 

 localized dancing-place and wings whose efficiency is impaired by ornamentation ; the 

 other cumbered with a great mass of plumage. Both also are compensated by unusually 

 keen senses of sight and hearing and ability to escape, the argus usually on foot, the 

 I*eacock au vol. 



Mentally, the Peafowl deserves high rank among birds, not, however, for its keen 

 senses, a mistake which many authors make in judging of the relative mentality of 

 various animals. Nothing could be more keen than the sense of smell of moths ; while 

 the tactile and auditory senses are wonderfully developed in organisms still lower in 

 the scale of life. But in adaptability we may class the Peafowl with the elephant. 

 Among all the pheasants, in a wild state there is no more wary, no tamer bird than this, 

 depending on whether man treats him as a game-bird or an object sacred to the gods. 



