734 
PAYO CRISTATUS. 
branches in its way. After feeding in forest-districts it is its habit to mount up to the lower limbs of large 
trees and dry the morning dew from its plumage; and it is a fine sight to see a number of these splendid birds 
in this elevated position at the edge of a grove. They will remain preening themselves until approached within 
a few hundred yards, and then disappear at once into the scrub beneath them. Towards evening, I have noticed 
that they again take to trees, and rest on large limbs, where they can have an outlook on the surrounding 
thickets and easily apprize themselves of any danger. Emerson Tennent, in writing of the forest solitudes of 
the Park country, speaks thus of the Peafowl which frequent them “ As we emerge from the dark shade and 
approach the park-like openings on the verge of the low country, quantities of Peafowl are to be found, either 
feeding on the seeds among the long grass, or sunning themselves on the branches of the surrounding trees. 
Nothing to be met with in English demesnes can give an adequate idea of the size and magnificence of this 
matchless bird when seen in his native solitudes. Here he generally selects some projecting branch from 
which his plumage may hang free of the foliage; and if there be a dead and leafless bough, he is certain to 
choose it for his resting-place, whence he droops his wings and suspends his gorgeous train, or spreads it in the 
morning sun to drive off the damps and dews of the night." 
As Jerdon truly remarks, few sportsmen resist a shot at a fine Peacock whirring past them, although it is 
not a favourite game, old birds being tough and unfit to eat. The young Peahen, however, when cooked in 
an orthodox fashion, is excellent eating ; and these birds, as the native Shikarees knew well, were not by any 
means despised by the garrison in the Fort of Trincomalie, a locality not famed for the quality or quantity of 
the butcher's meat. " 
Ihe Pitta, more than any bird in Ceylon, has been the subject of legends with the inhabitants of the 
country ; and I have already, in previous articles, referred to some of these. There is one mentioned by 
Emerson Tennent, connected with the Peacock, to the effect that this bird stole the plumage of the Pitta 
or Avitchia, whose singular cry the Singhalese liken to the word mat-ki-ang , which means, “I will complain ■" 
and this, they believe, is addressed by the bird to the rising sun, imploring redress for its wrongs ” ! 
Mr. Elliot, in his magnificent ‘ Monograph of the Phasianidse,’ gives the result of his observations of the 
Peacock in the lerai in the following interesting paragraph : — 
In the months of December and January, the temperature in the forests of Central India, especially in 
the valleys, is very low, and the cold (from sudden evaporation) intense at sunrise. The Peafowl in the forest 
may be observed at such times still roosting, long after the sun has risen above the horizon. As the mist rises 
off the valleys, and, gathering into little clouds, goes rolling up the hill-sides, till lost in the ethereal blue the 
Peafowl descend from their perch on some high seemul orsaul tree, and, threading their way in silence through 
the underwood, emerge into the fields, and make sad havoc with the chunna, oorid (both vetches), wheat or 
rice. TV hen sated, they retire into the neighbouring thin jungles, and there preen themselves, and dry their 
bedewed plumage m the sun. The cock stands on a mound or fallen trunk, and sends forth his well-known 
cry, pchaun-pehaun, which is soon answered from other parts of the forest ; the hens ramble about or lie down 
dusting their plumage; and so they pass the early hours while the air is still cool, and hundreds of little birds 
are flitting and chirruping about the scarlet blossoms of the polfts or the seemul. As the sun rises and the 
dewy sparkle on the foliage dries up, the air becomes hot and still, the feathered songsters vanish into shady 
nooks, and the Peafowl depart into the coolest depths of the forest, to some little sandy stream canopiedby 
verdant boughs, or to thick beds of reeds and grass, or dense thorny brakes overshadowed by mossy rocks where 
though the sun blaze over the open country, the green shades are cool, and the silence of repose unbroken 
though the shrill cry of the Cicada may be heard ringing faintly through the wood. There are spots in these 
saul -forests which, for luxurious coolness during the sultriest weather, rival the most elaborately devised recesses 
of the Alhambra, or the tinkling fountains of Isfahan; and the wilder denizens of the woods show no small 
discernment in selecting them In such lovely retreats one might cheat the hot hours of noon and rob 
them of their discomfort ; but, alas ! these are the spots where lurks malaria, and, moreover, where one may be 
very apt to intrude on the privacy of some misanthropic tiger!" Other writers, likewise, tell us that the 
natives believe tigers always frequent forest where Peacocks abound. 
In a state of nature the Peacock is chiefly granivorous, feeding on seeds, grain, and buds, but it like- 
wise consumes insects ; in a domestic state it is, as we all know, omnivorous, neither fish, flesh nor fowl 
nor any thing that it can get hold of, coming amiss to it. . ’ ’ 
