PHOTOGRAVURE 84 



FOOD OF THE GREEN PEAFOWL 



In common with many other members of the Pheasant Family, the principal item of diet of Green 

 Peafowl is white ants or termites. These omnipresent insects are scratched out of their turreted homes, 

 or picked up as they march from place to place (as in the lower photograph). Even the large-headed, 

 strong-jawed soldiers are no protection against the devastating beaks of peafowl, although I have shot 

 these birds with ten or fifteen heads of termite soldiers fastened in their mouth and throat, the jaws of 

 the insects being firmly fixed in death in the lateral tissues. 



