THE POULTRY BOOK. 
288 
are glossy bottle-green, each feather based steel blue. As these increase in size 
towards the lower part of the neck, they assume marginally more and more a 
coppery golden hue, with their centres and extreme edges lovely resplendent blue- 
green. The breast rich blue-green, the feathers scale-like, and margined with gold 
and copper ; rest of the lower parts dark blue-green, dulled with blackish ; entire 
back a rich coppery brown colour, with darker shades and transverse line, and bars 
of green and whitish brown. Towards the upper tail coverts these marks grow 
more defined and regular, till the coverts themselves become altogether rich green, 
blazing in lights with gold and copper, and regularly barred with whity brown ; 
the tail is deep olivaceous brown, indistinctly barred paler ; scapulars, as back ; all 
the wing coverts velvety sepia, but everywhere glowing with rich green and 
Prussian blue ; tertial and secondary quills black, with a shine of blue ; primaries 
ruddy buff colour. 
In the breeding dress, the upper tail coverts are replaced ])y feathers similar 
to those in the train of the common peacock, but there is more of the bronze tinge 
in these plumes of the Burman bird. 
“ The female differs from the cock bird much as in the Bengal species. 
“ The green or Burman peacock inhabits the countries along the eastern margin 
of the Bay of Bengal, Arakan, Burma, Tenasserim, Siam, and so on towards the 
south, throughout Malayana to Java, &c. The northerly and southerly limits of 
its habitat I do not know. As Jerdon does not include it in his birds of India, it 
is probable that it does not extend into Chittagong. 
“•The habits of the Favo muticns are so similar to those of its congener as 
scarcely to admit of separate description ; but I should say it was a still more strictly 
sylvan or forest-haunting bird. Cultivation does not appear to entice it far from its 
leafy fastnesses, as it does with the Bengal species ; and it is in consequence more 
secluded, wilder, and difficult of approach, besides being far less numerous. I have 
never seen more than three or four of the Burman peafowl together, whereas the 
Bengal species unite in flocks of 30, 40, or 50. It haunts the thickest jungle, 
whether on level ground or on the sides of small hills, and is frequently found in 
the masses of elephant grass which so commonly skirt the smaller brackish creeks 
and nullas of Arakan. A specimen with a full train is seldom seen, except in the 
beginning of the rains, which is the season of courtship. About August they 
moult, drop their long ocellated tail coverts, and assume the simpler green-barred 
ones. The train appears again in the succeeding March or April ; but the moulting 
of this bird appears to be irregular, and I have seen cock birds with fine flowing 
trains in January and February. The hen incubates in the rains, but at uncertain 
periods ; the young just hatched have been brought to me at Moulmein at different 
times, from August till January. The eggs cannot be distinguished from those 
of the Bengal bird. 
“The Burmese and Talaings, who never keep or tame wild animals, do not attemj)t 
to domesticate the peacock, but will now and then bring them into Moulmein for 
sale. The chicks resemble those of the Bengal species, and are difficult to ]-ear. 
