112 PEACOCK. 



plumage till the third year. The female seldom lays more than five 

 or six eggs, which are greyish white, and of the size of those of a 

 Turkey, in some marked with a few blackish spots ; sits from twenty- 

 seven to thirty days. 



The young are usually fed with curd, chopped leeks, barley meal, 

 &c also soft food, and insects, and in five or six months will feed at 

 large with the old ones. These birds prefer the most elevated places 

 to roost on during the night, such as high trees, tops of houses, and 

 the like. The cry is loud, and inharmonious, a perfect contrast to 

 their external beauty, which is no protection to them.* 



Are said to be caught in India by carrying lights to the trees on 

 which they roost, with painted representations of the bird, and when 

 they put out the neck to look at the figure, a noose is slipped over 

 the head, by which they are secured. f In most ages they have been 

 esteemed as a salutary and agreeable food, and at the present day a 

 young Pea Fowl is esteemed a delicacy. Hortensius gave the ex- 

 ample at Rome, where it was carried to the highest pitch of luxury 

 by selling very dear.J 



The life of this bird is said by some to be about 25 years, § by 

 others to exceed 100. || 



* " Miraris quoties gemmantes explicat alas, 



*' Et potes liunc ssevo tradere, dure, coco?" 



Mart. Epig. L. 13. Ep, Ixx. 



■f Tavernier' 's Trav. iii. 57. The inhabitants of the Mountains on both sides of the 

 Ganges, catch them with birdlime, prepared from the milky juice of two sorts of trees,* 

 boiled with oils to a consistence, which proves sufficiently tenacious to entangle them, or 

 the largest birds. — Phil. Trans, lxxi. 376. 



+ Pliny, B. x. Ch. xx. — They must have been in plenty notwithstanding, or the Emperor 

 Vitellius could not have procured sufficient for his large dish, called the Buckler of Minerva, 

 which was said to be filled with the livers of Scari, tongues of Flamingoes, and brains of 

 Peacocks. 



§ Aristotle, Pliny, BufTon. 



|| Willughby. Ten or eleven years since, a Peacock, belonging to Mr. Heuwood, of 

 Cordenham, in Cornwall, which had attained to 90 years, was killed by a ferocious h«\~ 



* Ficus religiosa and Indica, Lin. 



