PEACOCKS.
THE beautiful examples of the gradation of ornament in feathers, and of the evolution of the "peacock eye," shown at the Natural History Museum, are selected from the plumage of a wild peacock of India. Though the domes- ticated bird has not " changed his spots," or deviated from the wild type, we can produce in England none of such perfect plumage as those which live wild, but in semi- sanctuary, in the old home of their race. Central India, with its ancient temples, rock fortresses, rivers, and cultiva- tion, is the native and ancient home of the peacock. The bird seems the very embodiment of the ancient and gorgeous dynasties and civilisation of the old India, and as such it was in some sense regarded by the people themselves. Its special claim is as the steed or bearer of the goddess Saraswati, the Minerva of India, and of the god Karttikaya, the Hindoo Mars. But in truth the bird may well stand as the incarnation of the spirit of India. It has been said that the gods made nine gems but only one peacock.
The proverb loses little of its force by being not strictly in keeping with facts. There are two peacocks, and the difference between them is very marked and charac- teristic. Besides the bird of India and Ceylon there is a second species, the peacock of the Far East, of Java, Burmah, and Siam. If the comparison is not too fanciful, we should say, on looking at the two birds, that that of Burmah bears exactly the same relation to the Indian bird as the art of Burmah does to that of Hindostan. It is a decadent and less elegant form; the colours are less pure and more loaded; the hues and ornament too much besmeared with gold. The two species, with a singularly beautiful variety of the Indian peacock, have been placed together in a large case in the bird gallery at South Ken- nington Museum ; and with the two cock birds in analogous attitudes, and facing the light, the great difference in plumage is clearly seen. The Burmese peacock has a totally different crest from that of India. The latter has a crown of little balls set on slender stems. The crest of the former is like that of the waxwing, or of some cockatoos, a sharp angle of ordinary feathers, like the pointed gnomon of a sundial. This crest is blue, and the cheeks are blue. with olarome-yellow patches. But the most striking difference is on the wings and breast. Next to the " peacock eye," the ornament of the train, what has struck the world most in its plumage is the astonishing splendour of the "peacock blue? No bird in the world shows a colour-surface so large and so pure as this, which extends down the throat and covers the whole breast. It is set off by a peculiar "foil " seen in the tail of the golden pheasant and some other species. This contrast is the sober and quaint mottling of brown and cream colours in the wing, like the backs of old-fashioned back- gammon-boards. The Burmese bird is without either the characteristic blue or the mottled wing. The breast, back, and wings are all of various shades of bronzy green, loaded in some lights with gold.
It is satisfactory to know that the Indian bird, as we have it, is beyond improvement. It is incomparably the finer species; and during all the ages that it has been domes- ticated, human skill does not seem to have altered or improved it. Of the only two varieties seen, one, the pure white, is evidently an albino form, for though it has been per- petuated in domestication, wild white birds are sometimes seen. We could wish it were more common. The whole gradation of the peacock " eyes " is seen in its tail coverts, just as in the coloured species, except that the patterns show like white damask. This is evidence, if such were needed, that great parts of the shades in the peacock ornament are due to inequalities on the surface of the feathers.
Peacocks were brought to Europe from the East and domesticated far earlier than any other ornamental poultry. Perhaps the nearest instance of a similar importation was that of the guinea-fowL Like the peacocks, they are a wild species, and like the peacocks, they have remained true to the wild type, and have altered very little in domestication. But the guinea-fowl was a late Roman importation, while the pea- cock was known in Greece at no great interval after Solomon had imported it into Palestine. There are several good reasons for this very early export of the most splendid of all the birds of the East. The ancient traders to India must have concluded at once that this was absolutely the most beautiful of living creatures. No animal in the world combines such richness of hue and perfection of orna- ment, with the great size of the peafowl. But this alone would not have made its importation possible or easy. Long after European trade was established with China, many of the magnificent Chinese pheasants were quite unknown here, though perfectly suited to our climate. Reeves's pheasant, with its 5 ft. tail, and the Amherst pheasant were only acclimatised in England during the present generation. But the circumstances in which the early traders found the pea- cock in India were peculiar. The rare pheasants of China were the wildest of wild birds ; so are the argna pheasants of Java. But from whatever remote era the worship of the ancient gods of India dates, the peacocks have been sacred throughout vast provinces of the peninsula, under a " Wild Birds' Protection Act " dating from immemorial times, and sanctioned not only by religion, but by custom. Round holy places this forbearance becomes direct encourage- ment. The birds are fed in the precincts, and even share in endowments, and walk at large through courts and gardens. Peacocks, says Mr. Lockwood Kipling, are as common as rooks in Gujerat and Rajputana. They are lucky birds. The Western feeling which regards them in the contrary light is quite absent. A man ties a peacock's feather to his ankle to cure rheumatism, or the plumes are carried at weddings. As wild birds the peafowl increase and multiply as India becomes more prosperous. They love water and cultivation. Wherever a new canal is made, and cover grows upon its banks, and crops are irrigated from it, the peafowl follow the water. Thus they soon penetrate into regions where formerly they were unknown. This naturally leads them into the company of man, and accounts for their easy domestication here and elsewhere in Europe. In most native States the protection which they enjoy is absolute. In others low-caste natives catch them in the jungles, but mainly to take them alive and sell them. White peacocks are mainly bred in this country, and some years ago were regularly exported back to India by the elder Jamrach. The other domesticated variety, the japanned peacock, bears the same relation to the ordinary bird as the black-winged gamefowl do to the original breed of that name. The shoulders are a dark purple-black, with narrow green edging .on the feathers, and the metallic green of the back is more golden. But the dark colouring is so marked that it might be called the black peacock.
Peacocks and tigers are believed usually to live together. There is also a common jungle legend that leopards and tigers can fascinate peacocks. The story may originate in the fact that both leopards and peacocks have spots, and that there is some mysterious relationship between them. Colonel Tytler had an experience which showed that the natives believe in the story. When stalking a peacock he was rather surprised to see how near it allowed him to approach. The bird paid no attention to him, but was gazing intently, as if fascinated, at a little patch of jungle just in front. Looking in the same direction he saw a leopard stealing on its belly towards the bird, which continued to remain still in the same position. He was greatly surprised, for he had never even heard of leopards in that neighbourhood, but his astonish- ment was greater when, on his raising his gun, one barrel of which was loaded with ball, and covering the animal, the leopard threw up its paws, and shrieked in a voice hoarse with terror : "Nehin, Sahib, nehin, mut chulao,"—" No, Sir, no, don't fire." He said that for a moment he thought he must be going mad, and all the Indian tales of enchanted princes and fairies, werewolves, and the like flashed through his recollection. The next moment he saw a man very cleverly disguised in a leopard skin, with a well-stuffed head, and a bow and arrow in one paw, standing before him. The man so dressed was a professional fowler, who said that in that disguise he could always approach near enough to shoot the birds with a bow and arrow, and sometimes to catch them in his hand.
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