Crest on the head compressed.

P. cristatus, domesticus, Temm. Pig. et Gall. torn. II. p. 35. and torn. III. p. 651. Peacock, Bew. Brit. Birds, vol. I. p. 328.

Dimensions

Entire length three feet eight inches: length of the bill one inch ten lines; of the train four feet five inches; of the tail one foot seven inches.

Description

(Male). Crest of twenty-four feathers, the shafts slender, and scarcely webbed except at the tips, which are of a golden green colour: head, throat, neck, and breast, of a rich blue, glossed with green and gold; above and beneath the eye a white streak; back and rump golden green, glossed with copper, the feathers edged and tipped with velvet black; train, or upper tail-coverts, very much elongated, reaching considerably beyond the tail, capable of being erected and expanded at will; each of the feathers composing it having a conspicuous ocel-lated spot at the extremity; the true tail concealed beneath the train, consisting of eighteen feathers, of a grayish brown colour: scapulars and lesser wing-coverts variegated with black, and reddish cream-colour; middle coverts deep blue, glossed with golden green; greater coverts, bastard wing, and primary quills, rufous; the other quills dusky, some of them being variegated with red, and tinged with golden green: belly and sides greenish black; thighs tawny yellow: irides yellow: bill whitish: feet grayish brown. (Female). Smaller; the train shorter than the tail, and without the ocellated spots; sides of the head with more white; throat of that colour; neck green; general colour of the body, and wings, cinereous brown, the feathers on the breast being tipped with white: irides lead gray. White and pied varieties sometimes occur in both sexes. (Egg). Yellowish white, sparingly speckled with reddish yellow: long. diam. two inches e.ight lines; trans, diam. two inches one line.

A native of India, where it is still met with in an unreclaimed state. The period of its first introduction into this country, not very well ascertained. Lays from five to eight eggs. Time of incubation from twenty-seven to thirty days. The approach of the breeding season announced by the loud discordant screams of the male bird, first heard towards the end of March, and continued at intervals through the Summer. The two sexes are similar in plumage during the first year, and the train of the male does not appear till the third.