The drivers manage them with great facility, by means of a long stick with a bit of red rag tied to the end of it, which, from the antipathy these birds bear to that colour, effectually answers the purpose of a scourge.

In a wild state Turkeys are gregarious; and associate in flocks, consisting sometimes of more than five hundred. They frequent the great swamps of America to roost; but they leave these at sun-rise, to repair to the dry woods in search of acorns and berries. They perch on trees, and gain the height they wish by rising from bough to bough; and they generally mount to the summits of even the loftiest trees, so as to be beyond musket-shot. They run very swiftly, but they fly awkwardly; and about the month of March they become so fat that they cannot fly beyond three or four hundred yards, and are then easily run down by a horseman.

It is seldom indeed that wild Turkeys are now seen in the inhabited parts of America; and they are only found in great numbers, in the distant and most unfrequented parts. If the eggs of wild Turkeys be hatched under the tame birds, the offspring are said still to retain a certain degree of wildness, and to perch separate from the others; yet they will mix and breed together in the season.

The Indians make an elegant clothing of the feathers of Turkeys. They twist the inner webs into a strong double string with hemp, or with the inner bark of the mulberry-tree, and work it like matting. This appears very rich and glossy, and as fine as silk shag. The natives of Louisiana make fans of the tail; and of four tails joined together, the French used formerly to construct a parasol.

OF THE PEACOCK TRIBE IN GENERAL *. There are only four known species of Peacocks.

• The bill is strong and convex. The head is covered with

These are birds, for the most part, of large size. They feed on insects, fruit, and grain. One of them (the common kind) is an inhabitant of Asia and Africa, another of China, the third of Thibet, and the fourth of Japan.

THE CRESTED OR COMMON PEACOCK*.

If, says M. de Buffon, empire were claimed by beauty, and not by power, the Peacock would, without contradiction, be the king of birds. For elegance of form, and brilliancy of plumage, it is exceeded by none of the feathered race. On the Peacock it is that nature appears to have bestowed her treasures with the greatest profusion. Its large size, imposing manner, firm tread, and noble figure: the rich crest upon its head, adorned with brilliant colours: its matchless plumage, appearing to combine every thing that can delight the eye-all contend to place it high in our These beautiful plumes, however, are shed every year. At this period the bird seems humiliated; and searches the shades, in order to conceal himself from our eyes until a new spring restores to him his usual attire.

esteem.

The brilliant train of the Peacock is not its tail: the long feathers that form it do not grow from the rump, but upon the back. A range of short, brown, stiff feathers, fixed upon the rump, is the real tail, and serves as a support to the train. When the train is elevated, nothing appears of the bird in front, except its head and neck; but this would not be the case, were those long feathers fixed only on the rump. By

feathers which bend backward. The nostrils are large. The feathers of the train are long, broad, expansile, and covered with eye-like spots.

SYNONYMS. Pavo cristatus. Linnæus.-Le Paon. Buff -Bew, Birds, v. ii, p. 289.

a strong muscular vibration, these birds can make the shafts of their long feathers clatter together like the swords of a sword-dancer.

Peacocks are found wild in Asia and Africa; but the largest and finest of these birds are seen in the neighbourhood of the Ganges, and in the fervid plains of India. They are mentioned in the Sacred Writings, where they are enumerated as constituting part of the cargoes of the fleet which imported the treasures of the East to the court of Solomon.

These birds were highly esteemed by the Romans. Pliny states, that the first Roman who ordered Peacocks to be served up at his table, was Hortensius, in a grand entertainment which he gave when he was consecrated high priest. Marcus Aufidius Lurco was the first who attempted to fatten these birds in a manner which was peculiar to himself, and by which he is said to have derived an annual income of more than 60,000

sesterces.

The females lay only a few eggs at a time, and these at a distance of usually three or four days from each other. When they are at liberty and act from natural instinct, they always deposit their eggs in some sequestered or secret place. These are white and spotted, like the eggs of the turkey. The incubation occupies from twenty-seven to thirty days, according to the temperature of the climate and of the season.

As Peacocks, in this country, are not able to fly well, they climb from branch to branch, to the tops of the highest trees. From these, and from the roofs of houses, it is, that they usually make their harsh and very pecular cry. In this cry, one note is deep and the other sharp, the latter exactly an octave above the former; and both have somewhat of the piercing sound of a trumpet.

The females of this species, like those of the pheasant, have sometimes been known to assume the plumes of the male, Lady Tynte had a favourite pied peahen, which eight times produced chicks. Having

moulted when about eleven years old, the lady and her family were astonished to see her display the feathers that are peculiar to the other sex, and appear like a pied Peacock. In the following year she moulted again, and produced similar feathers. In the third year she did the same, and then had also spurs resembling those of the cock. The hen never bred after this change of her plumage.

OF THE PHEASANT TRIBE IN GENERAL*.

The females of this tribe produce many young-ones at a brood: these they take care of for some time, leading them abroad, and pointing out food for them. The nests of the whole tribe are formed on the ground.

THE COMMON PHEASANT t.

This beautiful bird is very common in almost all the southern parts of the Old Continent, whence it was originally imported into our country. In America it is not at all known.

Pheasants are much attached to the shelter of thickets and woods, where the grass is long; but, like partridges, they likewise breed in clover-fields. They form their nests on the ground: and the females lay from twelve to fifteen eggs, which are smaller than those of the domestic hen. In the mowing of clover near woods that are frequented by Pheasants, the destruction of their eggs is sometimes very great. In some places, therefore, game-keepers have directions to

* The characters of the present tribe are a short, convex, and strong bill; the head more or less covered with carunculated bare flesh on the sides, which in some species is continued upwards to the crown, and beneath so as to hang pendent under each jaw; and the legs in most of the species are furnished with spurs.

+ SYNONYMS. Phasianus colchicus. Linn.-Faisan. Buff. -Bew. Birds, p. 282.

hunt the birds from these fields as soon as they begin to lay, until their haunt is broken, and they retire into the corn. Poultry hens are often kept ready for sitting on any eggs that may be exposed by the scythe; and, with care, great numbers are thus rescued from destruction. The nest of the Pheasant is usually. composed of a few dry vegetables put carelessly together; and the young-ones follow their mother, like chickens, as soon as they break the shell. The parents and their brood, if undisturbed, remain in the stubbles and hedgerows, for some time after the corn is ripe. If disturbed, they seek the woods, and only issue thence in the morn-. ings and evenings, to feed among the stubbles. These birds are fond of corn; but can procure a subsistence without it; since they often feed on the wild berries of the woods, and on acorns.

In confinement the female Pheasant neither lays so many eggs, nor hatches nor rears her brood with so much care and vigilance, as in the fields out of the immediate observation of man. Indeed, in the business both of incubation and rearing the young-ones, the domestic hen is generally made a substitute for the hen Pheasant.

The wings of these birds are short, and ill adapted for considerable flights. On this account, the Pheasants on the island called Isola Madre in the Lago Maggiore at Turin, as they cannot fly over the lake, are imprisoned. When they attempt to cross, they are almost always drowned.

The Pheasant is, in some respects, a stupid bird. On being roused it will often perch on a neighbouring tree; where its attention will be so fixed on the dogs,. that the sportsman can without difficulty approach within gun-shot. It has been asserted that the Pheasant imagines itself out of danger whenever its head only is concealed. Sportsmen, however, who recount the stratagems that they have known old cock Pheasants to adopt, in thick and extensive coverts, before they could be compelled to take wing, convince us that this bird