which assume the plumage of the Male. 15 



and upon that of the common starling. Lastly, we may re- 

 mark, that analogous facts prevail, even in animals of a very 

 different organization, not to mention the human race. Among 

 women, after the cessation of the catamenia, the chin and up- 

 per lip become furnished with a true beard, — a phenomenon 

 which no one can deny to be of a similar nature with the de- 

 velopement of the plumage in the hen pheasant. 



We should be wrong, however, notwithstanding these re- 

 markable analogies, to pronounce this phenomenon to be a ge- 

 neral fact ; for there are birds in which it has never been ob- 

 served. Thus, though the number of pea-hens is consider- 

 able in the menagerie of the museum, and though these birds 

 are always suffered to die a natural death, and consequently 

 often of old age, it has never occurred that a change of plu- 

 mage was remarked ; whereas, in the pheasant it is so fre- 

 quent that I could have cited many more instances. Twelve 

 or fifteen years ago, a female of the common species nearly 

 completed her change in the museum, and I have seen it often 

 myself commenced in the hen golden pheasant. 



It is worthy of remark, that the peacock and the pheasant, 

 though differing greatly in the point on which we have been 

 comparing them, belong, nevertheless, to the same group, 

 GallinacEjE, and are even nearly related genera, a fact which 

 renders the example more striking. 



It remains also to be noticed, that the young male phea- 

 sant and the hen commencing her change, are similarly situat- 

 ed in regard to plumage ; it is the same in both, and both in 

 a certain period, more or less distant, will acquire the perfect 

 adult male plumage. The same change will therefore be 

 effected in each bird, and it would be natural to suppose, that 

 it would take place in the same manner, differing only in ra- 

 pidity, the male in a few months passing through that which 

 occupies the female a certain number of years. This, how- 

 ever, is not the fact. It will be sufficient to compare the de- 

 scriptions given by ornithologists of the young male, with the 

 details I have brought forward belonging to old females, to 

 perceive, that, in both cases, the change is effected in a differ- 

 ent manner, and that in fact it is almost impossible to deter- 

 mine whether a hen, in whom the change has commenced, has 



