In a state of nature, the pea-hen breeds once a-year, and lays, it is alleged, from twenty-five to thirty eggs, of a whitish hue, speckled with dusky, in some secret spot, where they may be secure from the observation of the ti ger and other beasts of prey, and especially from the male, which is apt to destroy them. In our climate, and when domesticated, the number of eggs seldom exceeds five or six, and the hen sits from twenty-five to thirty days, ac cording to the temperature of the country and season. In Greece, she lays from ten to twelve eggs; and, in the ab sence of the male, she will also produce barren eggs, which the ancients termed zelzhyrian, as they were supposed to result from the genial stimulus of the vernal gale. When pleased or delighted, and in sight of his females, the cock erects his tail, unfolds his feathers, and frequently turns slowly round, as if to catch the sun-beams in every direc tion, accompanying this movement with a hollow murmur ing. At other times his cry is very disagreeable, and of ten repeated, especially before rain. Every year he sheds his superb plumes; and then, as if conscious of his loss, he courts the most obscure retreats, till the returning spring renews his lustre. The young acquire the per fect brilliancy of their plumage in their third year; but, in cold climates, they require attention in rearing, and should be fed on grass, meal, cheese, crumbs of bread, and in sects, until they are six or seven months old, when they will eat wheat and various sorts of grain, like other galli naccous birds. But the peacock is, in this respect, ex tremely capricious; and there is hardly any kind of food which it will not at times covet and pursue. Insects and tender plants are often eagerly sought for, at a time that it'has a sufficiency of its natural food at command ; and during the indulgence of these unnatural appetites, walls cannot easily confine it ; it strips the tops of houses of their tiles or thatch, lays waste the labours of the gar dener, roots up his choicest seeds, and nips his favourite flowers in the bud. In India, one of its most mischievous propensities is picking at the eyes of children, which it pro bably takes for some glistening object of prey. Accord ing to Aristotle it lives about twenty-five years; but Wil loughby and others allege that it is capable of existing for near a century. When full grown it is not readily in jured by cold ; and an instance is quoted of one which was found quite frozen, and had lain for some days in the snow in the court-yard of a house in Dunkirk, in 1776, and which, by the application of a gentle heat, recovered from the accident, and continued to live as if nothing particular had happened. These birds arc also found to thrive in North America, notwithstanding the severity and duration of the winter season. In our cold climates, however, they seem to be incapable of very extensive flights; but they roost aloft in trees, or on the tops of houses or steeples, whence they utter their discordant scream. Though long
naturalized in Europe, they are of eastern origin, occur ring in the greatest profusion in the neighbourhood of the Ganges, and in the extensive plains of India, particularly in Guzcrat, Cambay, the coast of Malabar, the kingdom of Siam, and the island of Java. So early as the days of So lomon, they were imported into Judea, by the fleets which that monarch equipped on the Red Sea, and which, in all probability, traded to the coast of Malabar. From India they were brought into Asia Minor, and subsequently into the Isle of Samos, where they were formerly much multi plied, and consecrated to Juno, but front which they have now wholly disappeared. In Greece they still fetched a high price in the time of Pericles. According to Alian, thirty years after their first importation into that country, they were exhibited at Athens as a show to strangers ; and he adds, that multitudes flocked to see them from La eedemonia and Thessaly. Alexander had never seen them till he entered India, where he found them flying wild on the banks of the Hyarotis, and was so much struck with their beauty, that he decreed a severe punishment on all who should kill or molest them ; but, towards the close of his reign, they had so much multiplied in Greece, that Aristotle speaks of them as birds well known to his countrymen. They were introduced into Rome towards the decline of the republic ; and the oratar Hortensius was, according to Pliny, the first who had them presented at table, at a feast which he gave to the college of Augurs example was soon followed by the Roman epicures, in somuch that the price of the bird soon became exorbitant. The luxurious and effeminate emperors, relining on the ex travagance of former times, took a pride in collecting large dishes of the heads or brains of peacocks, and which seem to have had nothing to recommend them but the enor mous expence at which they were provided. In modern times, the young birds only are reckoned fit for the table, the flesh of the mature ones being hard and dry ; but in hot countries it continues longer sweet than that of almost any other fowl. Pope Leo X. was particularly fond of white sauces, in which peacock's flesh was an ingredient. This species has now been conveyed as far north as Swe den and Norway; but there it is produced in small num bers, and not without considerable diminution of its beau ty. The Europeans first fetched them to the coast of Africa, where they are now domesticated by the princes of those countries, particularly of Congo and Angola. They have been long since transported into Mexico, Peru, and the West India Islands, regions to which they could not have winged their way without the intervention of mankind.