The pride of the peacock

Graceful peafowl have never been shy about coming forward, although most of us admire the males’ flamboyant tail feathers–long a vibrant and striking motif–far more than their grating cries,

- Harry Pearson

WITH the imperious upturned head and rustling walk of an Edwardian dowager duchess, the peacock is the very emblem of elegant rural existence. The bird’s exotic radiance fits as reassuringly into a world of croquet lawns, terraces, topiary and ha-has as the russet feathers of other long-ago imported gamebirds do in our meadows and copses. Yet, although we have grown accustomed to its presence, the peacock retains an air of exclusivity. It is a polished, ornamented and expensive version of its cousin the pheasant —the limousine of the avian kingdom.

The peacock’s journey from its native India to the grounds of the British country house was long and convoluted. It started, perhaps, with Alexander the Great. When the Macedonian king first saw peacocks on the banks of the River Ravi in the Punjab, he was so astonished by their iridescent beauty he thought they must be divine and—as he was descended from a God himself—some sort of distant relation. Alexander ordered the birds protected and sent some back to Greece.

Although Phoenician traders probably brought peacocks to Europe some 600 years before Alexander, it was the charismatic conqueror who popularised them. His tutor Aristotle also played his part in the peacock’s voyage to our shores. The great philosopher conceived the idea that the peafowl’s flesh did not corrupt after death. This misplaced belief led to the bird being associated with immortality and the resurrection. As a consequence, it became an early symbol of Christianity. The catacombs of Rome were decorated with images of peacock feathers. Word of the bird spread as missionaries travelled westward.