INDIAN PEAFOWL 183 



sportsmen might look askance at it. On the other hand, from the ethical and aesthetic 

 point of view, there seems little in favour of the opinion that " to see a magnificent 

 fellow, with his long train, coming over you, and then tumble him over — head over 

 heels, head over heels — with a thump on the ground as he crashes through the boughs, 

 is by no means an unpleasant sight, to say nothing of its being very pretty ball 

 practice." The flesh of fully adult birds, those carrying the most perfectly developed 

 trains, is usually dry and rather insipid, very fortunately for the birds. 



The religion of the Jains forbids them to take life, and this throughout many 

 parts of India has been a factor in the protection of wild life more potent than any 

 governmental laws could ever be. But it works both ways. If the defenceless bird is 

 protected, so is its enemy. So, while bird life as a result is unusually abundant and 

 fearless, yet there has ensued no unusual change of balance. But in the case of a bird 

 like the Peacock, the effect of wholesale protection is at once noticeable. As I have said 

 elsewhere, this bird in the parts of its range, where it is protected and where it is 

 unprotected, presents the extremes of tameness and wariness. In the vicinity of 

 shrines, where the sacred birds are fed by the fakirs and pilgrims, they gather from the 

 jungle in large numbers, and when crossing a narrow valley in the vicinity of such a 

 place, the whole country may suddenly become alive with their beautiful forms, several 

 hundred rushing en masse ahead of one, a score rising at once and flying over the 

 backs of the others, and these in turn beating up and over the low trees. 



Where the birds receive no such protection, laws have been passed regulating the 

 shooting, although in spite of everything they have become extremely rare or extinct 

 in many places. A few years ago, in Ceylon, one could obtain a permit to hunt deer 

 and Peafowl for 3.50 rupees. To-day such a licence costs almost thirteen times as 

 much, and lasts from November to May. In the Government Reserved Forests in 

 India, Peafowl may not be shot between March 1st and September 15th, the usual time 

 of hunting being from November ist through February. The close season in the 

 Central Provinces is from March ist to November 30th. In Mysore they are shot by 

 the natives the year around. 



Even where protected, natives without caste search for their eggs and eat them by 

 the hundred, and until recently the traffic in their skins and trains was enormous. 

 Seventy thousand bundles of eyed plumes have been imported by one dealer in England 

 in a single week. Most of the plumes gathered in India are exported, although in parts 

 of the south-west coast there is an industry of considerable size, the feathers being used 

 to decorate hand-screens, fans and mats made of the roots of the kaskas grass. On the 

 whole there seems little danger of this bird's extermination, and Peafowl will probably 

 survive long after most of the pheasants have vanished from the earth. 



CAPTIVITY 

 While we have historical knowledge of the keeping of Peafowl in captivity hundreds 

 of years ago, yet its mentality is such that it has never become an intimate servant of 

 mankind, neither serving him commercially as does the domesticated fowl with its 

 unnatural fecundity, nor allowing him to breed it in all forms and colours, like the 

 Rock Dove. Whether we believe or not that it has conscious pride in its beauties, its 

 chief function in association with mankind is one of ornamentation. 



