THE POULTRY BOOK. 
2S1 
Central India, especially in the valleys, is very low, the cold, from sudden evapora- 
tion, being intense at sunrise. The peafowl in the forests 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 perches on some 
huge seemul or saul tree, and threading their way in silence through the under- 
wood, emerge* into the fields, and make sad havoc with the chunna, oorid (both 
vetches), wheat, or rice. When sated they retire into the neighbouring thin 
jungle, and there preen themselves, and dry their bedewed plumage in the sun. 
The cock stands on a mound, or a fallen trunk, and sends forth his well-known cry, 
^pehau?^ — pehau?i,’ 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 ^ polas ’ 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 our friends the peafowl 
depart silently into the coolest depths of the forest, to some little sandy stream 
canopied by 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 tink- 
ling fountains and rose bowers of Isphahan — the paradise of the old Persian — and 
the wilder denizens of the woods show no small discernment in selecting them. 
Many a delightful dreamy hour I have passed in some such delicious spot, watch- 
ing the little crystal streamlet at my feet, lazily scanning the endless variety of 
unknown plants, flowers, ferns, fungi, and mosses scattered around, or following 
the movements of some honeysucker, as the tiny feathered jewel, emboldened by 
the silence, displayed his brilliant plumage scarce a yard from my admiring eyes. 
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, more- 
over, where one may be very apt to intrude on the privacy of some misanthropic 
tiger ! The fact that where peafowl abound tigers are very likely to be met with is 
well knovm to Indian sportsmen, and is confidently believed by the natives 
themselves. 
These birds cease to congregate soon after the crops are off the ground. The 
pairing season is in the early part of the hot weather. The peacock has then 
assumed his full train, that is, the longest or last rows of his upper tail coverts, 
which he displays of a morning, strutting about before his wives. These strange 
gestures, which the natives gravely denominate the peacock’s nautch, or dance, are 
very similar to those of a turkey cock, and accompanied by an occasional odd 
shiver of the quills, produced apparently by a convulsive jerk of the abdomen. 
B B 
