File:Indian sporting birds (1915) (14750608015).jpg

Identifier: indiansportingbi00finn (find matches)
Title: Indian sporting birds
Year: 1915 (1910s)
Authors: Finn, Frank, 1868-1932 Hume, Allan Octavian, 1829-1912 Marshall, Charles Henry Tilson, 1841-
Subjects: Birds -- India Game and game-birds -- India
Publisher: London : Francis Edwards
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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t,as used to be the case with wild turkeys in America in the daysof their abundance ; these birds, by the way, having also limitedpowers of flight, often fell into rivers and had to swim ashore,and I have seen in England a young peacock reduced to thesame extremity by having tried to fly across a stream withclipped wings, save himself similarly, swimming as readily asa moorhen. The scream of the peacock is very well known, but theordinary call-note is less familiar ; it sounds like anyone tryingto pronounce the birds Latin name Pavo through a trumpet, andis often used as an alarm-call. Being essentially birds of tree-jungle, pea-fowl naturally roost on trees, and high trees at that;but they do not mount to the top, but settle down on the lowerboughs. They are late in roosting in the wild state, and some-times in domestication, though I have commonly observed themgoing to bed quite early. Yet they are wary at night—at anyrate an escaped hen in Covent Garden defied nocturnal surprises
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PAVO MUTICUS BURMESE PEAFOWL 161 for several months ; but they can be shot on the roost in the wildstate, though only need of food ought to drive anyone to this.The buff eggs, by the wa), about half a dozen of which are laid,generally in the rains and on the ground, are most excellent. It must be admitted, however, that peafowl are not by anymeans friends to the farmer and forester, as they are destructiveto grain, herbage, flowers, and buds ; most of their food is, in fact,vegetable, but they also, to their credit, consume various insectsand other vermin, including young snakes. They are as good toeat as turkeys, if yearlings are taken, and a yearling cock canalways be picked out, as I said above, by his cinnamon quills.Young hens have slightly redder quills than old ones, and area little pencilled on the feathers over the tail. As the cock isthree years old by the time he is in full colour, one can onlyexpect him to be tough, as any ordinary rooster would be; but ofcourse he is good

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