The New Student's Reference Work/Peacock

Pea′cock, a bird belonging to the pheasant family and conspicuous for the beautiful train of the male. This train is not composed of the tail-feathers, but of long feathers which overlie those of the tail and are called tail-coverts. These, with the tail, are capable of being raised. The birds roost in trees or high places, and always sit facing the wind. They make their nests on the ground, of small sticks or leaves. The peacock is a native of India and Ceylon, and is plentiful in their forests and jungles. Their diet is varied, consisting of worms, reptiles, grain, flesh or fish etc. These birds have been naturalized in many parts of the world. The plumage of the male combines blue, green, gold and bronze tints. The tail-coverts are especially magnificent, with bright-colored eye-spots, and can be spread into the form of a huge fan. The blue tint is so characteristic that it has given rise to the name of peacock-blue. The proud, self-conscious air worn when showing off his splendors, has given rise to the phrase: “proud as a peacock.” The bird is said not to exhibit these splendors save when sure of an audience. By the ancients the peacock was called the bird of Juno. But though the plumage is so beautiful, the voice is discordant, the utterance a scream. The flesh was once considered a great delicacy; peacock's liver being much in vogue at the old Roman banquets, and during the middle ages a cooked bird decked out in all its finery often appeared on the table of the rich. The female is not brilliantly colored, is brownish and is without showy tail-coverts. At first, both are alike in plumage, but the male begins to acquire gorgeous tints, and is in perfect plumage at the end of about three years.