As the rose among flowers, so is the peacock among the feathered tribes.
No other bird has so many colors in its plumage. Its hues are all
beautiful; the brilliant blue and black, shot with gold, of the eyes
of the tail, the satin-like peacock blue of its neck and breast, the
shining green of its back, each feather with its tiny eye of brown, the
clear brown of the stiff fan that supports its tail, the soft gray down
that clothes its body--all are fit robing for this royal bird.
In keeping with his kingly raiment is his regal movement; so graceful,
so dignified, that one seems disposed to believe the legend of India,
his native home, that he contains the metamorphosed spirit of a
peerless prince. I have said that his step is kingly, yet I am often
disposed to yield to the opinion of an old man who declared that the
gait of the peacock is queenly, much like that of a beautiful and
graceful woman with a long train. Certain it is, that nothing else can
make such an addition to a green lawn as a peacock, stepping lightly
along, keeping his brilliant feathers swaying just above the grass.
My West Virginia home has many beauties of nature, shady dells where
waters sparkle, pastures that slope toward the shining Ohio, lofty
trees that give shade to sleek cattle and spirited horses; but amid all
these charms we have always rated highly the gorgeous peacocks which
have so long adorned its grounds that it has become known as the "Home
of the Peacocks." Though now sadly diminished by poachers and hunters,
there were many years in which scores of them, sometimes nearly a
hundred, strutted around our rural home.
The peacock's tail does not assume full length and beauty until his
fourth or fifth year. The feathers begin to grow in January, and by
early spring are long, and then his season of strutting begins; and he
spends a large part of every day in this proud employment. Each peacock
has his favorite place of strutting, and frequents it day after day.
Open gateposts are much sought after; and our front gateposts have
always been favorite resting-places on sunny afternoons, where these
beauties seemed posing to order.
For many seasons a very handsome one strutted in front of our
sitting-room window. Some of the family slipped over its neck a cord on
which hung a silver dime, which shone on its blue feathers. Alas for
his majesty! Strutting in the road one day, a horse shied at him, and
its owner threw a stone and killed the beauty.
The peahen, a meek-looking matron with a green neck and long gray
feathers, is very secretive as to a nest, and seeks an orchard or
wheatfield. When the little gray brood, from three to five in number,
are a few weeks old she brings them to the yard.
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 cold weather they do not come down until late in the day. Sometimes
on snowy days they get so weighted with snow that they cannot fly up,
and so settle on the ground, and their long feathers freezing, have to
be cut loose. In June or early July their feathers begin to drop, and
to secure them they must be plucked. Though so docile as to frequent
the porches, they do not like to be caught, but take to the wing, so
a rainy day is selected, when their feathers are weighted with water,
and they are soon chased down. After being plucked they are unsteady in
gait and hide in the bushes for days.
Peafowls have a strong home-feeling and when taken away are hard to
retain; as they wander off, striving to return. 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.