100 
PEACOCKS. 
the most important and magnificent occasions; and 
he who carved them was considered as honoured in 
the highest degree. The feathers from the tail of 
the Peacock were formed by the ladies of quality 
into a crown, for the purpose of decorating their 
favourite troubadours, or minstrels. The eyes 
were considered to represent the attention of the 
whole world as fixed upon them. And in those 
days of chivalry, so constantly was the Peacock 
the object of the solemn vows of the knights, that 
its image was hung up in the place where they 
exercised themselves in the management of their 
horses and weapons; and before it, when roasted 
and dressed in its plumage, and placed, with great 
pomp and ceremony, as the top dish at the most 
splendid feasts, all the guests, male and female, took 
a solemn vow. The knights vowing bravery, — the 
ladies engaging to be loving and faithful. It was, 
no doubt, in consequence of this veneration, that 
queen Elizabeth chose to have her picture taken in 
a gorgeous robe covered with Peacocks’ eyes. 
If we are indebted to India for the Peacock 
(where, in their wild state, they fly in coveys, glit- 
tering in the sun, or may be seen roosting in trees, 
in such numbers, that an author describes them as 
almost hiding the foliage with their plumage), and to 
the Eastern countries for our Pheasants, we have to 
thank the New World for that more homely, but 
more useful bird, the Turkey, which, there is reason 
to believe, was never known in Europe, till about 
three hundred years ago, when it was imported 
from America ; but which has now been so widely 
spread, that in some places, as, for instance, in the 
