Peacock’s works were collected, though not completely, and published in three volumes in 1875, at the expense of his friend and former protégé, Sir Henry Cole, with an excellent memoir by his granddaughter Mrs Clarke, and a critical essay by Lord Houghton. His prose works were collected by Richard Garnett in ten volumes (1891). Separate novels are included in “Macmillan’s Illustrated Standard Novels,” with introductions by Mr Saintsbury. For an interesting personal notice, see A Poet’s Sketch Book, by R. W. Buchanan (1884). (R. G.)
PEACOCK (Lat. Pavo, O. Eng. Pawe, Du. pauuw, Ger. Pfau, Fr. Paon), the bird so well known from the splendid plumage of the male, and as the proverbial personification of pride. It is a native of the Indian peninsula and Ceylon, in some parts of which it is very abundant. Setting aside its importation to Palestine by Solomon (1 Kings x. 22; 2 Chron. ix. 21), its assignment in classical mythology as the favourite bird of Hera testifies to the early acquaintance the Greeks must have had with it; but, though it is mentioned by Aristophanes and other older writers, their knowledge of it was probably very slight until after the conquests of Alexander. Throughout all succeeding time, however, it has never very freely rendered itself to domestication, and, though in earlier days highly esteemed for the table,[1] it is no longer considered the delicacy it was once thought; the young of the wild birds are, however, still esteemed in the East.
Japan or “black-shouldered” Peafowls.
As in most cases of domestic animals, pied or white varieties of the ordinary peacock, Pavo cristatus, are not infrequently to be seen, and they are valued as curiosities. Greater interest, however, attends what is known as the Japanese or Japan peacock, a form which has received the name of P. nigripennis, as though it were a distinct species. In this form the cock, besides other less conspicuous differences, has all the upper wing coverts of a deep lustrous blue instead of being mottled with brown and white, while the hen is of a more or less grizzled-white. It “breeds true”, but occasionally a presumably pure stock of birds of the usual coloration throws out one or more having the Japan plumage. It is to be observed that the male has in the coloration of the parts mentioned no little resemblance to that of the second indubitably good species, the P. muticus (or P. spicifer of some writers) of Burma and java, though the character of the latter’s crest—the feathers of which are barbed along their whole length instead of at the tip only—and its golden-green neck and breast furnish a ready means of distinction. Sir R. Heron was confident that the Japan breed had arisen in England within his memory,[2] and C. Darwin (Animals and Plants under Domestication, i. 290–292) was inclined to believe it only a variety; but its abrupt appearance, which rests on indisputable evidence, is most suggestive in the light that it may one day throw on the question of evolution as exhibited in the origin of “species.” It should be stated that the Japan bird is not known to exist anywhere as a wild race, though apparently kept in Japan. The accompanying illustration is copied from a plate drawn by J. Wolf, given in D. G. Elliot’s Monograph of the Phasianidae.
The peafowls belong to the group Gallinae, from the normal members of which they do not materially differ in structure; and, though by some systematists they are raised to the rank of a family, Pavonidae, most are content to regard them as a sub-family of Phasianidae (Pheasant, q.v.). Akin to the genus Pavo is Polyplectrum, of which the males are armed with two or more spurs on each leg, and near them is generally placed the genus Argusianus, containing the argus-pheasants, remarkable for their wonderfully ocellated plumage, and the extraordinary length of the secondary quills of their wings, as well as of the tail-feathers. It must always be remembered that the so-called “tail” of the peacock is formed not by the rectrices or true tail-feathers, but by the singular development of the tail-coverts. (A. N.)
PEAK, THE, a high table-land in the north of Derbyshire, England, included in the Pennine range of hills. The name, however, is extended, without definite limits, to cover the whole of the hilly district north of Buxton. The table-land reaches an elevation of 2088 ft. in Kinder Scout. The geological formation is millstone-grit, and the underlying beds are not domed, but cup-shaped, dipping inward from the flanks of the mass. The summit is a peaty moorland, through which masses of rock project at intervals. The name of this high plateau has from the 17th century been identified with “peak,” the pointed or conical top of a mountain, but the very early references to the district and certain places in it show clearly, as the New English Dictionary points out, that this connexion is unwarranted. The name appears in the Old English Chronicle (924) as Péaclond, of the district governed from the castle of Peveril of the Peak (see Derbyshire), and also in the name of the cavern under the hill at Castleton, Péac’s Arse. Péac, it has been suggested, is the name of a local deity or demon, and possibly may be indentified with Puck. For the etymology of “peak,” point, &c., and its variants or related words, “pick” and “pike,” see Pike.
PEALE, CHARLES WILLSON (1741–1826), American portrait painter, celebrated especially for his portraits of Washington, was born in Queen Anne county, Maryland, on the 16th of April 1741. During his infancy the family removed to Chestertown, Kent county, Maryland, and after the death of his father (a country schoolmaster) in 1750 they removed to Annapolis. Here, at the age of 13, he was apprenticed to a saddler. About 1764 he began seriously to study art. He got some assistance from Gustavus Hesselius, a Swedish portrait painter then living near Annapolis, and from John Singleton Copley in Boston; and in 1767–1770 he studied under Benjamin West in London. In 1770 he opened a studio in Philadelphia, and met with immediate success. In 1772, at Mount Vernon, Peale painted a three-quarters-length study of Washington (the earliest known portrait of him), in the uniform of a colonel of Virginia militia. This canvas is now in the Lee Memorial Chapel of Washington and Lee University. He painted various other portraits of Washington; probably the best known in a full-length, which was made in 1778, and of which Peale made many copies. This portrait had been ordered by the Continental Congress, which, however, made no appropriation for it, and eventually it was bought for a private collection in Philadelphia. Peale painted two miniatures of Mrs Washington (1772 and 1777), and portraits of many of the famous men of the time, a number of which are in Independence Hall, Philadelphia. His portraits of Washington do not appeal so strongly to Americans as do those of Gilbert Stuart, but his admitted skill as a draughtsman gives to all of his work considerable historical value. Peale removed to
- ↑ Classical authors contain many allusions to its high appreciation at the most sumptuous banquets; and medieval bills of fare on state occasions nearly always include it. In the days of chivalry one of the most solemn oaths was taken “on the peacock,” which seems to have been served up garnished with its gaudy plumage.
- ↑ A. Newton himself regarded this as probably incorrect.
