Page:Natural History, Birds.djvu/248

 This noble fowl, though not a native of this country, has been domesticated with us so long as to be familiar to all our readers. The genus, which contains but two recognised species, is distinguished by the following characters: the beak is convex, rather stout, curved towards the tip, smooth at the base; the cheeks partially naked; the nostrils, situated at the base of the beak, are open; the head surmounted with an erect crest of slender, peculiarly formed feathers; the wings are short, the sixth quill the longest; the tail-coverts very long, broad, and erectile, in the male.

The Common Peacock (Pavo cristatus, .) is mentioned as known in Greece in very early times; Eupolis and Athenaeus, who flourished in the fifth century before Christ, speak of it; and even five centuries farther back, it was regularly imported into Judea from the east in the fleets of Solomon: while, at an era still more remote, its beauty is appealed to, as a thing commonly known on the southern border of the same country.

It seems scarcely necessary to describe a bird so familiarly known; to dilate upon its light coronet of lance-tipped feathers, its taper neck, and swelling breast of changeable purple, its back and wings of brassy-green, or its superb lengthened tail-coverts, with their dilated tips marked with eye-spots of the richest purple, surrounded by rings of green, black, and chestnut, radiant with gem-like reflections. These feathers do not constitute the tail, for they begin to grow far up on the back, so that when erected and spread,