Canal banks fringed with trees, and traversing rich cultivation
are, as I have already remarked, their especial delight, and in
such localities I have found a great many nests, my search for
them being stimulated by the conviction that a wild Peahen's
eggs are delicious eating, far preferable to a Turkey's, or indeed
to any other gallinaceous bird's eggs that I have ever tried.
Their nests are not confined to the plains, but in the Himalayas,
Ni'lgiris, and other suitable ranges occur up to elevations
of from 1,000 to 2,000 feet, and in the Ni'lgiris, it is said, to 5,000
feet.
The great majority of our Pea-Fowl in Upper India lay during
July and August, but I have found eggs as late as the middle of
October. The nest is made in amongst thick grass or in dense
bushes, cftcn on a sloping bank, and is a broad depression
scratched by the hen, and lined with a few leaves and twigs, or
a little grass. I have never myself found eggs in the abnormal
situations described below by Mr. A. Anderson.*
I have never found more than eight eggs in any nest, and I
think that six or seven are the usual complement; but natives
say (and see also Miss Cockburn's remarks) that they lay at
times much larger numbers.
Captain G. F. L. Marshall says:—" T h e Pea-Fowl breed
during the rains in the Saharanpur, Bulandshahr and Aligarh
districts. The eggs are laid on the ground, usually among the
thick underwood on the canal banks.
" Near Bulandshahr, I got six eggs on the 27th July ; the shell
is much pitted, pure fawn colour in some, and stained with darker
brown in others.
"Again, in the Aligarh District, I found four fresh eggs on the
5th A u g u s t ; they were laid on the bare ground, inside, but near
the edge of an old heap of dry sticks, round which grass had
sprung up tall and thick ; this small thicket was in an open
plain close to a road with no bushes or other undergrowth near.
" But they sometimes breed later, and choose more exposed
situations even than this. On the 31st August I took three fresh
eggs laid without any attempt at concealment whatever : they
were on the ground on a dry patch amongst very short grass
under the trees 011 the canal bank ; there was no undergrowth,
and the eggs could be seen from some distance."
Mr. R, M. A d am remarks :—" I had eggs of this species brought
to me in Agra 011 the 14th October. The eggs were a good
deal incubated."
Mr. A. Anderson writes to me that " the Pea-Fowl breeds in
the North-Western Provinces during June, July and August, the
latter being about the most general month. About November,
the young birds are the size of chickens, and are then well
worth shooting for the table. Sometimes, though rarely, I have
* Mr. Whitten, however, tells me that he once found a nest near Chomoha,
on the top of a large haystack,
seen ten and twelve chicks following one h e n ; but these, no
doubt, are amalgamated broods, for I have never found more
than six eggs in one nest (I believe, however, that they occasionally
lay up to seven or eight), and sometimes only three
or four.
" Three years ago, a chaprássi, who, from long practice, had
become somewhat arboreal in his habits, brought me three fresh
Pea-Fowl's eggs from an old nest of Gyps heugalensis. Shortly
afterwards I saw the nest, which was situated on a huge
horizontal bough of a Burgot, in the centre of some Dhák
jungle, and on which all t h e Pea-Fowl in the neighbourhood were
in the habit of roosting. I have every reason to believe my
chaprássi, because he had no object in wishing to deceive me,
and my own experience is in favour of these birds laying at
high elevations (the same remark is applicable to a good many
gallinaceous birds), for I have on several occasions taken their
eggs from the roofs of huts in deserted villages, high mounds,
and from the tops of masonry mosques on which rank vegetation
grew to the height of two or three feet."
From the Ni'lgiris Miss Cockburn writes :—" The Peahen lays
from ten to fifteen eggs and forms a nest by scratching a slight
place in the ground, and gathering a few dry leaves and sticks.
The eggs are generally found in June and July, and are a dingy
buffy white."
The eggs are typical Rasorial ones, much like gigantic Guineafowls'
eggs, with thick, very strong and glossy shells, closely
pitted over their whole surface with minute pores, which are,
however, more deeply indented and more conspicuous in some
specimens than others. In shape, they vary much ; some are
very broad, some decidedly elongated ovals, so that some more
resemble in shape an English Pheasant's eggs, and others are
more like a Turkey's: all are more or less pointed towards the
small end. The colour, within certain limits, also varies much ;
some are almost pure white, others are a rich café an lait or
reddish buff; others, again, arc dingy yellowish buff, but typically
they are a pale pinkish café an lait colour. Occasionally specimens
are met with thickly freckled with pale reddish brown,
feeble reproductions of the Moonal'seggs ; but the vast majority
are entirely unspotted.
In length they vary from 2'55 to 3'0, and in breadth from
l'92 to 2'2 ; but the average of forty eggs is 274 by 2x15.
MALES, MEASURE.—Length, 80 to 92 ; to end of true tail only, 40
to 46 ; the train in full breeding plumage projects from 40 to
48 inches (and, I have been assured, even 54 inches) beyond the
end of the true t a i l ; wing, 18 to 19 ; tail from vent, 18 to 21 ;
tarsus, 5-5 to 575 ; bill from gape, vg. Weight, 9 to i i ^ t b s.