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Updated: May 15, 2025
Are they rowers and coverts too?" "A bird does not row with his tail he steers with it, as if it were a rudder; and the long feathers are therefore called rudder-feathers or rectrices, which is Latin for rudders. But the short ones are called coverts, like those of the wings upper tail-coverts, and under tail-coverts."
If we picture to ourselves a progenitor of the peacock in an almost exactly intermediate condition between the existing peacock, with his enormously elongated tail-coverts, ornamented with single ocelli, and an ordinary gallinaceous bird with short tail-coverts, merely spotted with some colour, we shall see a bird allied to Polyplectron that is, with tail-coverts, capable of erection and expansion, ornamented with two partially confluent ocelli, and long enough almost to conceal the tail- feathers, the latter having already partially lost their ocelli.
It is seen in many bulbuls, robins, and woodpeckers, and in the pitta. The existence of these red under tail-coverts in such diverse species can, I think, be explained only on the hypothesis that there is an inherent tendency to variation in this direction in many species.
On its head it wears a peculiar fan-like crest, which, overhanging the forehead, extends to the back of the head, and which bears a strong resemblance to the plume of an ancient helmet. The tips of these crest-feathers are tinged with brown and yellow. Between the wing and upper tail-coverts appear flowing plumes, which droop gracefully over the firmer feathers of the tail and sides.
The tail-feathers in both species of the peacock are entirely destitute of ocelli, and this apparently is related to their being covered up and concealed by the long tail-coverts. In this respect they differ remarkably from the tail-feathers of Polyplectron, which in most of the species are ornamented with larger ocelli than those on the tail-coverts.
Under parts white, but mottled with dusky on the breast, where it also tinged with buff, and barred very distinctly on each side further back; under tail-coverts barred with buff and black. Eyes brown; feet and bill greenish-gray, the latter very soft and sensitive, the former with a very small hind toe.
The crown of the head and hinder part of the neck are a dingy brown, which on the neck has a shade of ash colour; the bend of the wing and lesser wing-coverts are a brownish black; the whole upper surface of the plumage is of a glossy brownish-green, which is spotted on the middle wing-coverts with minute white spots, that change to a dingy yellow on the back, scapulars, and tertials, the last of which have twelve spots on the outer margin of the feathers, and six on the inner one; the tertials are very long, the longest of them reaching to within a quarter of an inch of the extreme top of the wing, which reaches to the end of the tail; the quill feathers are wholly black, as are also the secondaries; the upper part of the rump is black, and each feather is slightly tipped with white, which forms small wavy lines on that part of the plumage; the lower part of the rump and upper tail-coverts are pure white; the tail, which is even at the end, consists of twelve feathers, which are barred with black and white alternately.
Peacock, polygamous; sexual characters of; pugnacity of the; Javan, possessing spurs; rattling of the quills by; elongated tail-coverts of the; love of display of the; ocellated spots of the; inconvenience of long tail of the, to the female; continued increase of beauty of the. Peacock-butterfly. Peafowl, preference of females for a particular male; first advances made by the female.
Thus the several species of Polyplectron manifestly make a graduated approach to the peacock in the length of their tail-coverts, in the zoning of the ocelli, and in some other characters. Part of a tail-covert of Polyplectron chinquis, with the two ocelli of natural size. Hence I concluded that the early progenitors of the peacock could not have resembled a Polyplectron.
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