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
