Such is the size of these birds that they frequently weigh more than forty pounds each. The Indians not only esteem them as food, but make an elegant clothing of the _feathers_. The webs of these they twist, into a double string, with hemp or the inner bark of the mulberry-tree, and work or weave them somewhat, like matting. The article thus produced is said to have a rich and glossy appearance, and to be as fine in texture as silk shag. The inhabitants of Louisiana make fans of the tails; and the French, in the American colonies, used formerly to construct parasols by joining four of these tails together. It does not appear that turkeys were known in England anterior to the reign of Henry the Eighth; and it is supposed that the first of these birds which appeared in Europe were brought from Mexico, after the conquest of that country, in 1521. These birds, in a domestic state, subsist on grain and insects, and breed early in the spring; the females, whenever they have opportunity, wander to a considerable distance from the poultry yards to construct their nests, and lay and hatch their eggs. These are from fourteen to seventeen in number, of large size, and white colour, marked with reddish or yellow freckles. Young turkeys are so tender as to require much attention in rearing them. The housewives of Sweden frequently plunge them into cold water the day they are hatched; and, after having forced each of them to swallow a pepper-corn, restore them to the care of the parent. Few birds are more in request for the table than these. The principal countries in which they are fed are Norfolk and Suffolk; and, about Christmas, the demand for them in London is so great that the coaches are sometimes laden with them, even to the exclusion of living passengers. Occasionally turkeys are driven along the roads in flocks of several hundreds together, the drivers having no other implement for keeping them in order, than a long stick with a piece of scarlet rag tied at the end, to which colour they have a very extraordinary antipathy. 158. _The PEACOCK_ (Pavo cristatus) _is a well-known bird, a native of the woods of the East Indies and other parts of Asia, as well as of several parts of Africa._ _It is peculiarly distinguished by having on its head a crest of twenty-four feathers, and, a single hard spur at the back of each leg. The male has, over its tail, several feathers, sometimes four or five feet in length, and each marked, at the extremity, with an eye-like spot: the real tail consists of a range of short, brown, and stiff feathers, which are beneath these._ In some parts of the East Indies the shooting of wild peacocks is not an uncommon diversion, and the size and heavy flight of the birds are such that it does not require a good marksman to bring them down.