PEACOCKS.
India, says Mr. Pennant, gave us Peacocks, and we are assured by Knox, in his History of Ceylon, that they are still found in the wild state, in vast flocks, in that island and in Java. So beautiful a bird could not be permitted to be a stranger in the more distant parts; for so early as the days of Solomon (1 Kings, x. 22.) we find among the articles imported in his Tarshish navies, Apes and Peacocks. A monarch so conversant in all branches of natural history, would certainly not neglect furnishing his officers with instructions for collecting every curiosity in the country to which they made voyages, which gave him a knowledge that distinguished him from all the princes of his time. Ælian relates that they were brought into Greece from some barbarous country, and that they were held in such high estimation, that a male and female were valued at Athens at 1000 drachmæ, or £32. 5s. 10d. Their next step might be to Samos; where they were preserved about the temple of Juno, being the birds sacred to that goddess; and Gellius in his Noctes Allicæ commends the excellency of the Samian Peacocks. It is therefore probable that they were brought there originally for the purposes of superstition, and afterwards cultivated for the uses of luxury. We are also told, when Alexander was in India, he found vast numbers of wild ones on the banks of the Hyarotis, and was so struck with their beauty, as to appoint a severe punishment on any person that killed them.
Peacocks’ crests, in ancient times were among the ornaments of the kings of England. Ernald de Aclent (Acland) paid a fine to king John in a hundred and forty palfries, with sackbuts, lorains, gilt spurs and peacock’s crests, such as would be for his credit.—Some of our regiments of cavalry bear on their helmets, at present, the figure of a peacock.