282 
THE POULTRY BOOK. 
These are all blandishments^ we are told, to allure the female, and doubtless have 
a most fascinating effect. 
“ The hen lays in Central India during June and July. The eggs, amounting 
sometimes to eight or ten, are laid on the hare ground, generally under a thicket, 
in the deepest and most secluded part of the jungle ; they are of a dull brownish 
Avhite, about 2J inches in length, and in breadth. The chicks rnn about as 
soon as hatched. They are at first covered with down, and in ahoryk a week begin 
to assume their first feathers, which are of a dull dark brown above and paler 
below, in both sexes, the sides of the head whitish, with a dark hand through the 
eye. The cock remains for a year or eighteen months of the same colour as the 
hen, and does not assume the long tail coverts till the third year ; these fall off 
when moulting in the rains, and the new coverts remain short till about November 
or December, when the last rows elongate rapidly. 
‘‘Peafowl, as may be seen amongst those reared with our poultry, are omni- 
vorous — insects, worms, reptiles, flesh, fish, are as readily devoured as grain. In 
a farmyard they are mischievous in killing and devouring chickens, and, though 
reared from the egg in confinement, they rarely become thoroughly domesticated, 
but ramble farther and farther as they grow. They are vicious birds, and show 
their tameness by attacking infirm persons and children.” 
The Burman or Javan Peacock, Pavo muticus, which is often erroneously termed 
the Japan Peacock, is a native of the Burmese and Malay countries, as far north- 
wards as Aracan and Sumatra, and is abundant all over Java. “ It is,” writes 
Ornithognomon, “ a finer and larger species than the preceding. The dimensions 
of a cock bird killed by me in the Tenasserim provinces, were as follows — Entire 
length from bill to the tip of the longest upper tail covert, 7 ft. 3 in. ; the coverts 
exceeded the tail itself by 3 ft. 3in. ; wing, 1 ft. 3i in. ; spread of the wings, 5 ft. 
9 in.; bill, Ifin. ; tarsus, 5in. ; middle toe, 3in. 
“ The neck is more bulky than in the Bengal or common peacock, and the 
plumage on it laminated, or scale-like. In other respects, the form resembles that 
of the common species, except in the crest, which is long and narrow, standing 
vertically on the upper part of the occiput, and composed of narrow feathers, 
scantily webbed basally, and ending in oblong blades. Each of the Jong flowing 
upper tail coverts ends in an ocellum, or eye, coloured similarly to those in the 
train of the ordinary peacock ; but the longest or last of these coverts have the 
terminal portion emarginate, or crescent- shaped, as if the ocellum had been cut 
out. The lateral or outermost of these coverts are more thickly webbed and 
curved inwards, so as to bend over the adjoining ones ; they terminate in points, 
without ocelli. 
“ It would occupy too much space to describe with accuracy the colours of this 
splendid bird. It differs from the common peacock chiefly in the following 
particulars. The bare skin of the face is a livid smalt blue from the bill round the 
eye ; but below and behind this the skin is orpiment yellow, with a patch of black 
hairs over the ear. The crest, the feathered part of the head, and the entire neck 
