On Female Pheasants assuming the Male Plumage, 309 



although, on the other hand, several groups separated, at great 

 distances from each other, appear to present examples of this re- 

 markable phenomenon. 



Note by the Editor. 



The interesting fact of female birds assuming the plumage of the- male, 

 was, in modern times, first attended to by the celebrated J. Hunter, who, in 

 a memoir on this subject in the Philosophical Transactions of London, de- 

 scribes a hen pheasant and pea-hen which had in old age assumed the male 

 plumage. Mr G. St Hilaire in the preceding memoir says, that of the many 

 pea-hens in the menagerie in Paris, no instance occurred of the pea-hen as- 

 suming the male plumage,— -a fact which shews such a change is rarely met 

 with in the peacock. In the Museum of this University there is a fine spe- 

 cimen of the jo^a-^^n with the male plumage; presented to the Museum by 

 the Duchess of Buccleuch. In the note accompanying the gift it is said the 

 change was effected during the course of a few years. The following descrip- 

 tion will convey an idea of the degree of change experienced in this indivi- 

 dual : — The head and neck have assumed the same green and blue tints which 

 characterise the male, the breast and belly also have the same deep colour. 

 As in the male, the primaries are pale brown, and a patch upon the wing 

 bright green. The dorsal feathers, however, are still more or less mottled 

 with grey; and the green which they have partially assumed is lighter than 

 in the male, and not blended with the coppery hue which in his plumage ex- 

 tends from the middle of the back to the rump. The rump feathers are 

 elongated, some of them the length of 18 inches, but the train formed by 

 them is scanty, and the ocellar spots are neither so large nor so varied as in 

 the male. The ordinary tubercles on the tarsi of the female have been deve- 

 loped into thick regular conical spurs, about half the length of those of the 

 male. In short, the change is so much advanced, that after another moult it 

 would probably have been complete. 



In the Museum «f the University there is a specimen of the female phea' 

 sant with the male plumage, presented some years ago by Dr Hope. The 

 only differences which the plumage of this individual exhibits, when con- 

 trasted with the male bird, are the following : \st. The tail feathers are 

 shorter than those of an adult male, although considerably longer than those 

 of an ordinary female ; 2d^ The lustre of the colours in general is not quite 

 so vivid as in the male, especially on the back of the wings. There is no ap- 

 pearance of spurs. 



Sometimes the same sort of apparent change of sex is observed among do- 

 mestic poultry. Mr Neill at Canonmills had a black hen, of what is called 

 the French breed, which, in her twelfth year, ceased to lay eggs, and gradu- 

 ally assumed somewhat the appearance, and to a considerable degree the man- 

 ners, of the cock. The principal change of plumage consisted in the tuft on 



