Peafowl

"Yoked to thy chariot wrought of gold, may thy two Bays with peacock tails, Convey thee hither, Steeds with their white backs, to quaff sweet juice that makes us eloquent."

"The peacock spends the day keeping watch. The holy bird, the peacock, spends the day calling "haya!". A bird red from cornelian, blue from lapis lazuli, white from chalcedony, with all kinds of gold, and leather inlaid with gold -- may the coppersmith fashion the peacock for you thus."

"For everything seemed resting on his nod, As they could read in all eyes. Now to them, Who were accustomed, as a sort of god, To see the sultan, rich in many a gem, Like an imperial peacock stalk abroad (That royal bird, whose tails a diadem,) With all the pomp of power, it was a doubt How power could condescend to do without."

"Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock,—a stride and a stand."

"To Paradise, the Arabs say, Satan could never find the way Until the peacock led him in."

"Let frantic Talbot triumph for a while And like a peacock sweep along his tail."

"So have the peahens three-times-seven, so have the maiden Sisters Seven Carried thy venom far away, as girls bear water in their jars."

"COME hither, Indra, with Bay Steeds, joyous, with tails like peacocks plumes. Let no men cheek thy course as fowlers stay the bird: pass o’er them as o’er desert lands."

"The very port and gait of a Duck, or Chicken, or peacock show the high idea he has entertaind of himself; and his contempt of all others. This is the more remarkable, that in the two last species of animals, the pride always attends the beauty, and is discoverd in the male only."

"Both the peacock and the chicken passed through [Mesopotamia] on their way westward[;] the Sumerians called the chicken ‘ the bird from Meluhha’ and the Syrians called it the ‘Akkadian bird’."

"The peacock is a native to India, which seems to be the source of most peacock motifs [….] The name mayura may have some connection with magyar, which is the self-name of the Hungarians [….] Some Indian song was the likely common origin of both folksong 95 and folksong D because of the Hindu mythological elements found in the latter two. In particular, a possible origin may be the Vedic hymn of the Vena bird (Rig Veda book 10, hymn 123) [….] Uralic linguistics identified a set of words that reflect borrowings [….] The people who brought these words with them and merged with the Proto-Hungarians at some point in history also may have brought with them the peacock motifs and part of the Rig Vedic oral tradition"."

"To frame the little animal, provide All the gay hues that wait on female pride: Let Nature guide thee; sometimes golden wire The shining bellies of the fly require; The peacocks plumes thy tackle must not fail, Nor the dear purchase of the sables tail."