United States or Romania ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
As Noah and his family were the only ones not to have a share in the corruptness of the age, so the animals received into the ark were such as had led a natural life. For the animals of the time were as immoral as the men: the dog united with the wolf, the cock with the pea-fowl, and many others paid no heed to sexual purity. Those that were saved were such as had kept themselves untainted.
Gradually the beaters approached nearer and nearer, and, as the circle became smaller, pea-fowl innumerable flew over our heads with a loud whirr, their brilliant plumage glancing in the sunshine like shot-silk.
His olfactory nerves also were too well occupied with the fragrant smell of the roast pea-fowl and pigeon to scent me out, which he might otherwise probably have done. He was evidently enjoying his unexpected repast, and daintily picking the bones. Had I left my spirit flask, I suspect that he would have taken a pull at that to wash down his meal.
Among these the prevailing species are egrets, herons, sandlarks, and plovers, while in the jungle great numbers of the pea-fowl are to be met with at all seasons of the year. The Ceylon pea-fowl, of which we have before spoken, is remarkable for its size and the beauty of its plumage. It is unmolested by the natives, but Europeans find the flesh palatable and nutritious.
This is rendered the more probable by the fact, that in those districts where the extension of cultivation, and the visits of sportsmen, have reduced the numbers of the jungle-cocks and pea-fowl, snakes have perceptibly increased.
But these birds are semi-domestic, and are usually kept in enclosures, and that they can stand the climate and propagate when thus protected from competition is not strange; for we know that several of our hardy domestic birds the fowl, pea-fowl, Guinea-fowl, and Muscovy duck are tropical in their origin.
After I had killed the serpent I loaded one of my barrels with small shot, that I might kill a bird for my supper, the pangs of hunger warning me that I should not get on at all without eating. I very soon knocked over a pea-fowl and a parrot. Of the latter I had frequently eaten pies during our journey.
"And how, how in the name of common sense," Madame de Vallorbes exclaimed, stamping her foot, and thereby throwing the now thoroughly nervous pea-fowl into renewed agitation, "are you to establish any relation worth mentioning with a man who is perpetually being carried in procession like a Hindu idol? My good birds, one's never alone with him whether by design and arrangement, I know not.
Enjoyed the gentle, southwesterly wind which touched her face and stirred her bright hair, enjoyed the plaintive, autumn song of a robin perched on a rose-grown wall, enjoyed the impotent ferocity of the guardian griffins, enjoyed the small sounds made by the feeding pea-fowl, the modest quaker grays and the imperial splendours of their plumage.
The colonel was somewhat partial to these pets, for he was a `mighty hunter. You might see a number of young colts in an adjoining lot; a pet deer, a buffalo-calf, that had been brought from the far prairies, pea-fowl, guinea-hens, turkeys, geese, ducks, and the usual proportion of common fowls. Rail-fences zigzagged off in all directions towards the edge of the woods.
Word Of The Day