Peafowl generally retire to the thickest part of the jungles during the
heat of the day, but if you go out very early, when they are slowly
wending their way back from the fields, where they have been revelling
all night, you can shoot numbers of them. I used to go about twenty or
thirty yards into the jungle, and walk slowly along, keeping that
distance from the edge. My syce and pony would then walk slowly by the
edges of the fields, and when the syce saw a peafowl ahead, making for
the jungle, he would shout and try to make it rise. He generally
succeeded, and as I was a little in advance and concealed by the
jungle, I would get a fine shot as the bird flew overhead. I have shot
as many as eight and ten in a morning in this way. I always used No. 4
shot with about 3-1/2 drams of powder.

Unless hard hit peafowl will often get away; they run with amazing
swiftness, and in the heart of the jungle it is almost impossible to
make them rise. A couple of sharp terriers, or a good retriever, will
sometimes flush them, but the best way is to go along the edge of the
jungle in the early morn, as I have described. The peachicks, about
seven or eight months old, are deliciously tender and well flavoured.
Old birds are very dry and tough, and require a great deal of that
old-fashioned sauce, Hunger.

The common name for a peafowl is _m[=o]r_, but the Nepaulese and Banturs
call it _majoor_. Now _majoor_ also means coolie, and a young fellow,
S., was horrified one day hearing his attendant in the jungle telling
him in the most excited way, '_Majoor, majoor_, Sahib; why don't you
fire?' Poor S. thought it was a coolie the man meant, and that he must
be going mad, wanting him to shoot a coolie, but he found out his
mistake, and learnt the double meaning of the word, when he got home