IN MODIFYING EXTERNAL CHARACTER. 81 



The horns of the red and fallow deer remain in their velvet till 

 August, and while they are in that soft and tender state, the 

 males never make an offensive use of them ; and long before they 

 are hard and burnished, the calves of the one, and the fawns of 

 the other, dropped about the first week in June, are strong and 

 nimble enough to get out of harm's way. This, however, is certain, 

 that the old females of all the three species take especial care to 

 conceal their young while they remain helpless. 



The neutral effect produced when the animal happens to be 

 deprived of the influence of the true sexual organ, whether from 

 original malformation, subsequent disease, or artificial obliteration, 

 is particularly conspicuous in our common fowls. The capon ceases 

 to crow ; the comb and gills do not attain the size of those parts 

 in the perfect male ; the spurs appear, but remain short and 

 blunt ; and the hackle feathers of the neck and saddle, instead of 

 being long and narrow, are short and broadly webbed. The capon 

 will take to a clutch of chickens, attend them in their search for 

 food, and brood them under his wings when they are tired. 



In the imperfect female the comb increases ; a short spur or 

 spurs appear ; the plumage undergoes an alteration, getting what 

 is usually called "foul-feathered;" she ceases to produce any 

 eggs, and makes an imperfect attempt to imitate the crow of the 

 cock. Being profitless in this state, she is usually made away 

 with. The proverb says, 



" A whistling woman and a crowing hen 

 Are neither good for gods nor men." 



Our neighbours and allies the French, who seem to take a wider 

 range in their prejudice against habits which they consider irre- 

 gular, have the following proverb, which says, 



" Poule qui chante, Pretre qui danse, 

 Et Femme qui parle latin, 

 N'arrivent jamais a belle fin." 



I have seen two instances in which females of the wild duck 

 have assumed to a considerable extent the appearance of the 

 plumage of the Mallard, even to the curled feathers of the tail. 

 One of these birds, in my own collection, was given me when alive 

 by my kind friend the late John Morgan, Esq. When this bird 

 was examined after death, the sexual organs were found to be 

 diseased, as in the cases of the hen pheasants referred to, and 

 figured in the 2nd volume of the " History of our British Birds." 

 In the published illustrations to his " Fauna of Scandinavia," 



LINN. PROC. — ZOOLOGY. 6 



