How rich the peacock ! what bright glories run

From plume to plume, and vary in the sun!

He proudly spreads them to the golden ray,

And gives his colours to adorn the day ;

With conscious state the spacious round displays,

And slowly moves amid the waving blaze. Young.

This very beautifu1 and interesting bird has a compressed crest and solitary spurs. It is about the size of a turkey; the length from the top of the bill to the end of the tail being three feet eight inches. The bill is nearly two inches long, and is of a brown colour. The irides are yellow. On the crown there is a sort of crest, composed of twenty-four feathers, not webbed, except at the ends, which are gilded green. The shafts are of a whitish colour ; and the head, neck, and breast, are of a green gold colour. Over the eye there is a streak of white, and beneath there is the same. The back and rump are of a green gold colour, glossed over with copper; the feathers are distinct, and lie over each other like shells Above the tail springs an inimitable set of long beautiful feathers, adorned with a variegated eye at the end of each ; these reach considerably beyond the tail, and the longest of them in many birds are four feet and a half long. This beautiful train, or tail, as it is improperly called, may be expanded in the manner of a fan, at the will of the bird. The true tail is hid beneath this group of feathers, and consists of eighteen gray-brown feathers, one foot and a half long, marked on the sides with rufous gray; the scapulars, and lesser wing coverts, are reddish cream colour, variegated with black ; the middle coverts deep blue, glossed with green gold ; the greatest and bastard wing, rufous; the quills are also rufous, some of them variegated with rufous, blackish, and green ; the belly and vent are greenish black, the thighs yellowish, the legs stout, those of the male furnished with a strong spur, three-quarters of an inch in length, the colour of which is gray-brown.

Silk-Worms.

These birds, now so common in Europe, are of Eastern origin. They are found wild in the islands of Ceylon and Java, in the East Indies; and at St. Helena, Barbuda, and other West India islands. They are not natural to China; but they are found in many places in Asia and Africa. They are, however, no where so large or so fine as in India, in the neighbourhood of the Ganges, whence they have spread into all parts, increasing in a wild state in the warmer climates, but requiring care in the colder regions. In ours, this species does not come to its full plumage till the third year. The female lays five or six grayish white eggs; in hot climates twenty, the size of those of a turkey. These, if let alone, she lays in some secret place, at distance from the usual resort, to prevent their being broken by the male, which he is apt to do if he find them. The time of sitting is from twenty-seven to thirty days. The young may be fed with curds, chopped leeks, barley-meal, etc. moistened; and they are fond of grasshoppers, and some other insects. In five or six months they will feed as the old ones, on wheat and barley, with what else they can pick up in the circuit of their confinement. They seem to prefer the most elevated places to roost on during the night; Such as high trees, tops of houses, and the like. Their cry is loud and inharmonious, - a perfect contrast to their external beauty. They are caught in India, by carrying lights to the trees where they roost, and having painted representations of the bird presented to them at the same time ; when they put out the neck to look at the figure, the sporsman slips a noose over the head, and secures his game. In most ages they have been esteemed a salutary food. Hortensius gave the example at Rome, where it was counted the highest luxury, and sold dear, and a young peacock is thought a dainty, even in the present times. The life of these birds is reckoned by some at about twenty-five years; by others a hundred.

So beautiful a species of birds as the peacock could not long remain unknown: so early as the days of Solomon, we find, among the articles imported in his Tarshish navies, apes and peacocks. AElian relates, that they were brought into Greece from some barbarous country; and that they were held in such high esteem, that a male and female were valued at Athens at 1000 drachmae, or £32. 5s. 10d. At Samos they were preserved about the temple of Juno, being sacred to that goddess; and Gellius, in his Noctes Atticae, c. xvi. commends the excellency of the Samian peacocks. 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 was fined to king John in one hundred and forty palfreys, with sackbuts, lorams, gilt spurs, and peacocks' crests, such as would be for his credit.