The licence for the gun had expired and they had a shot a peacock using the gun and skinned the bird, the police said.After they confessed to poaching a peacock and skinning it, the police handed them over to Sivaganga forest range office.Forest range officer N Nagarajan said they had seized the gun and the skinned peacock. The carcass was sent for a postmortem.Peacock, the national bird , is protected under Schedule I of Wildlife Protection Act. Poaching it can attract three years of imprisonment and Rs 25,000 of fine.