Peafowl

“ The peafowl is its own worst enemy in domestication. It has a very savage disposition toward smaller birds, and in this way usually makes itself an intolerable nuisance to those who grow other poultry. Many owners of large farms, who do not keep turkeys, or who keep only a small flock, might maintain a small stock of peafowl with very little trouble. Although they are so vicious when brought in close contact with smaller poultry, they will flock and forage by themselves if they have room to do so. ”

“ When, however, one sees a flock containing several females, or males in which the characteristic plumage is not yet developed, the general resemblance between peafowl and turkeys is immediately noticed. The peafowl is smaller, slenderer, and more graceful than the turkey, and is a little more agile in motion. But if there were no old males present to identify the species, to which they belong, a person who was not familiar with peafowls, seeing a flock for the first time, would be almost certain to think that they were turkeys of a rare breed. ”

“ I have seen males of the game variety attack a number of other larger animals which in any way threatened their charges.
Although our barnyard fowl are almost the only ground birds which have ever been brought to a state of perfect domestication, there are several other species of the same group which have been taught in a measure to adhere to man. Of these perhaps the longest in domestication is the peafowl. This creature, though it has edible, indeed we may say savory flesh, has retained its small place in civilization solely on account of its extraordinary beauty. ”

“ The beauty of the ornamental types makes them very desirable to those who keep birds for pleasure. Because they are so much smaller than peafowl, and also because they are able to live amicably with fowls, they may be kept where peafowl could not. It is therefore probable that, as people in America become more familiar with pheasants, and as they learn that the greatest pleasure and the surest profit in aviculture are to be found in growing a few birds under the most favorable conditions that can be made for them, the numbers of pheasant fanciers will greatly increase. ”

“ The peacock, or male peafowl, when matured and in full plumage, is the most gorgeous of birds. Many smaller birds are more brilliant in color. Many birds of various sizes and types have beautiful or interesting characters as attractive as those which distinguish the peacock. ”

“ The guinea and the peafowl were described as closely related to the pheasants, and as of limited usefulness to man both because of their ugly dispositions and because of their roving habits. The species of pheasants that are best known are a little farther removed from domestication by their extreme shyness, and have often been excluded from lists of domestic birds; yet it is quite possible that some of them may become of much greater economic importance in America than either the guinea or the peafowl. ”

“ Such as lay for the first time lay about eight eggs. The peahen lays wind-eggs. They pair in the spring; and laying begins immediately after pairing. The bird moults when the earliest trees are shedding their leaves, and recovers its plumage when the same trees are recovering their foliage. People that rear peafowl put the eggs under the barn-door hen, owing to the fact that when the peahen is brooding over them the peacock attacks her and tries to trample on them; owing to this circumstance some birds of wild varieties run away from the males and lay their eggs and brood in solitude. ”

“ The adult peacock is so much more striking in appearance than the females and the young males, and old males are so often exhibited alone, that many persons suppose that the peafowl are distinctly unlike other domestic birds. The size, shape, and carriage of the peacock sometimes suggest to them a resemblance to the turkey gobbler, but the peacock's most striking characters seem so peculiar to it that the attention of the observer is usually fixed upon them, to the exclusion of direct comparisons with other creatures. ”

“ The peafowl matures more slowly and does not breed so early. The females are not fit for breeding until two years old; the males not until three years old. They do not pair, but mate in small polygamous families—one male with from two to four females. The peahen usually lays from four to six eggs—rarely more than eight or ten. The period of incubation is four weeks. Young peachicks are very bright and active. They begin to fly when only three or four days old. If they are to be kept in an inclosure while very small, the sides must be high or the top must be covered with wire netting. ”

“ Among the rocks at the base of the hills which here and there descend into the lake, colonists of others find a congenial home, and where there is space for a margin of green turf, the peafowl steals out from among the over-hanging bamboo clumps, morning and evening, to pick up small marine insects. ”

“ The wild peafowls in different parts of Asia vary somewhat in color and are sometimes thought to be of different species, but they are evidently all varieties of the same species. Specimens of all are seen in domestication. One variety is almost black. Domestic life has had little if any effect upon the type of peafowls. A white variety has been produced, and from the mixture of this with the green variety, birds that are partly white are sometimes obtained. ”

“ They are enemies to young chickens, and are exasperating to the good housewife, as they are hard to drive away, performing a circle and returning. The peafowl is almost as good a table fowl as the turkey. ”

“ Peafowls scorn the shelter of a house and roost in the loftiest trees. Near our home are some tall oaks and under them they gather on summer evenings, and, after many shrill good-night cries, fly upward to the high limbs. ”

“ In many parts of Northern India, notably in those districts through which the Jumna and Ganges run, peafowl are accounted sacred by the Hindu population. If you shoot one in such a locality the villagers have a disagreeable way of turning out en masse, armed with lathis. The reverence for the peacock is curiously local. In one village the people will invite you to shoot the birds on account of the damage they do to the crops ”

“ They fully expected that we would not survive the night and, even when they saw we had experienced no ill effects, they could not be persuaded to touch any of it themselves. An old peacock is too tough to eat, but the younger birds are excellent and when stuffed with chestnuts and roasted they are almost the equal of turkey.
The species which we killed on the Salween River is the green peafowl (Pavo munticus) which inhabits Burma, Sumatra, Java, and the Malay Peninsula. ”

“ They include the domestic fowl, which has been derived from the wild jungle fowl of India, and other fowl, such as the peafowl. Quail are also included here; so are Pheasants. The absence of Pheasants from Australia is more than compensated for by the presence of the Mound-Builders. These marvellous birds, Brush Turkeys and Mallee-Fowl, retain the reptilian characteristic of not sitting on their eggs. Thus the young have never known their parents. The eggs are laid in a huge mound of sand and earth, which contains rotting vegetation. ”

“ The peacock, like the ostrich, is almost omnivorous; it feeds chiefly upon grain, buds, and shoots of grass, but it is not averse to insects, and will devour many of these, which are generally supposed to be inedible and so warningly coloured. Lizards and snakes complete a varied menu.
The peafowl is a bird of considerable interest to the zoologist, as it affords a striking example of sexual dimorphism. In plain English, the cock differs greatly from the hen in appearance. In some species, such [157] as the myna, the crow, and the blue jay, the cock is indistinguishable from the hen. ”

“ The females lay, according to the climatic conditions, from April to October; the eggs, of a brownish color, are numerous (eight to ten) , and are laid without a nest in some concealed spot. At first both sexes are alike in plumage, but after a year or so the males gradually acquire their gorgeous feathers, which are perfected about the third year. The Javan peafowl is said to be even handsomer than the familiar species. The flesh and eggs are of good quality though inferior to the domestic fowl, though they are still extensively bred in southeastern Asia for food. ”

“ Though the peafowls invariably roost in trees, yet they make their nests on the ground, and ordinarily on a bank raised above the common level. The nest consists of leaves and small sticks. From January to the end of March, when the corn is standing, the flesh is juicy and tender, but during the dry season, when the birds feed on the seeds of weeds and insects, it becomes dry and muscular.
In some parts of India peacocks are extremely common, flocking together in bands of thirty and forty in number, covering the trees with their splendid plumage and filling the air with their dissonant voices. ”

“ The peafowls belong to the group Gallinae, from the normal members of which they do not materially differ in structure; and, though by some systematists they are raised to the rank of a family, Pavonidae, most are content to regard them as a sub-family of Phasianidae (Pheasant, q.v.) ”

“ The development of the plumage in the male at full maturity is like that of the fowl and of some pheasants. In all of these species in which the tail of the male assumes a highly decorative form, it is not the tail proper that is so developed, but the tail coverts and other feathers of the back, which in the male are long and flowing. In the peacock these feathers are very remarkably developed, both in form and in color. The largest are sometimes a yard long. The stem, or shaft, is a marvelous combination of lightness and strength. ”

“ A fowl eminent for the beauty of his feathers, and particularly of his tail.
The peacock and peahen are always kept by the London dealers, whence any person in the country, desirous of breeding them, may be supplied with breeding stock. Exclusive of the consideration of ornament to a poultry-yard, the peacock is very useful for the destruction of all kinds of reptiles, but at the same time some peacocks are said to be vicious, and apt to tear to pieces and devour young chicks and ducklings, suffered to be within their reach. They are also destructive in a garden. ”

“ Brains parboiled in salt and water to harden them are another good substitute for sweetbreads, and offer one more change from the perpetual joint and fowls that are on every table.
Game and Poultry.—A young fowl has large feet, knees, and neck in proportion to its size, and its thighs look white or pinkish. An old one has thin, scraggy legs and purplish tinge on its thighs; the scales look hard and horny, and often there are long hairs on the skin. If the beak is on, it should be soft, and so with the breast bone, which is frequently broken by the poulterer to give the bird a plump appearance. ”

“ From that starting-point, then, this useful domestic animal soon spread abroad everywhere, and found always the most ready reception wherever man was about to change from a nomadic shepherd-life and have a settled, permanent home. At present the breeding of fowls receives most attention in France, which country is said to support, at the lowest calculation, 100,000,000 fowls—a striking example of what an important part in the economical life of a people this animal is capable of playing.
The peacock, too, is a native of Asia, having come to us from India. ”

“ As soon as it espies its prey, it glides silently into the air, and, sweeping easily and rapidly down, seizes it in its claws. When disturbed, it makes a short circuit, and soon settles on another perch. It builds its nest on a tree, of short sticks, lining it sparingly with deer’s hair. The eggs, from three to five in number, are equal in size to those of the domestic fowl, and have a greenish-white colour, with a few large dark brown blotches at the thick end. ”

“ Here he generally selects some projecting branch, from which his plumage may hang free of the foliage; and if there be a dead and leafeless bough, he is certain to choose it for his resting-place, whence he droops his wings and spreads his gorgeous train, or spreads it in the morning sun to drive off the damps and dews of night. In some of the unfrequented portions of the eastern province to which Europeans rarely resort, and where the Pea-fowl are unmolested by the natives, their number is so extraordinary that, regarded as game, it ceases to be sport to destroy them ”

“ That night she and her brood roosted in the old apple-tree in the corner of the orchard nearest the poultry-yard. She flew up with the older fowls and fluttered and lurched and squawked and pushed on first one branch and then another, while the Chickens were walking up a slanting board that the farmer had placed against one of the lower branches. It always takes fowls a long time to settle themselves for the night. They change places and push each other, and sometimes one sleepy Hen leans over too far and falls to the ground, and then has to begin all over again. ”

“ At the same time, spreading out its tail in the form of a shell, it throws the reflection upon the 195 other feathers, which shine all the more brilliantly when a shadow is cast upon them; then at another moment it will contract all the eyes depicted upon its feathers in a single mass, manifesting great delight in having them admired by the spectator. The peacock loses its tail every year at the fall of the leaf, and a new one shoots forth in its place at the flower season ”

“ The feathers of the neck are short, and the tail is depressed. Some of the rarer kinds of pheasants are as large as medium-sized fowls.
Pheasants as a class are distinguished principally for their brilliant plumage. In most species the male alone has showy coloring, the females being very sober hued. In some species the male has a very long tail, corresponding to the train of the peacock; in some the tail is wide and heavy, as well as quite long; in others the males are feathered like the females. ”