PEACOCK (pe'k6k), (Heb. took-kee').
It is a question perhaps more of geographical and historical than of Biblical interest to decide whether thz*yinz (1 Kings x:22), and thiikyinz (2 Chron. ix :21) denote peacocks strictly so called, or some other species of animal or bird. There are only two species of true peacocks, viz., that under consideration, which is the Pavo cris tatus of Linn.; and another, Pavo liguticus, more recently discovered, which differs in some par ticulars, and originally belongs to Japan and China. Peacocks bear the cold of the Himalayas: they run with great swiftness, and where they are, serpents do not abound, as they devour the young with great avidity, and, it is said, attack with spirit even the Cobra di Capella when grown to considerable size, arresting its progress and confusing it by the rapidity and variety of their evolutions around it, till exhausted with fatigue it is struck on the head and dispatched.
This singular and beautiful bird is mentioned among the articles imported by Solomon from Tharshish, the modern Ceylon or Malabar coast of India, where the peacock is indigenous. In Job xxxix :t3 another Hebrew word is found, better rendered "ostriches," and the word "os trich" should be translated (as it is elsewhere) "stork." The wings of the ostrich cannot raise it from the ground; yet in running it catches (or, as the word rendered "goodly" imports, "drinks in") the wind. The construction of the ostrich and that of the stork are thus contrasted, as are also their habits; for the stork is as proverbial for her tenderness to her young as is the ostrich for her seeming indifference (Job xxxix :14-16). (See OSTRICH; STORK.)