1826.] Soienlific Notices — Zoology^ 4^ 



" The interesting fact of female birds assuming the plumage 

 of the male was in modem times first attended to by the cele- 

 brated I. Hunter, who, in a memoir on this subject in the Philo- 

 sophical Transactions of London, describes 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 assuming the male plumage, a fact which shows such a 

 change is rarely met with in the peacock. In the Museum of 

 this IJniversity, there is a fine specimen of the pea hen with the 

 male plumage, presented to the Museum by the Duchess of 

 Buccleugh. In the note accompanying the gift, it is said the 

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

 following description will convey an idea of the degree of change 

 experienced in this individual. 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 par- 

 tially assumed is lighter than in the male, and not blended with 

 the coppery hue which in his plumage extends from the middle 

 of the back to the rump. The rump feathers are elongated, 

 some of them to 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 developed 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 month, it would probably 

 have been complete. 



In the museum of the University, there is a specimen of the 

 female pheasant with the male plumage, presented some years 

 ago by Dr. Hope.'^ The only differences which the plumage of 

 this individual exhibits, when contrasted with the male bird, are 

 the following : first, the tail feathers are shorter than those of an 

 adult male, although considerably longer than those of an ordi- 

 nary female ; secondly, 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 appearance of spurs. 



Sometimes the same sort of apparent change of sex is 

 observed among domestic 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 gradually assumed 

 somewhat the appearance, and, to a considerable degree, the 

 manners of a cock. The principal change of plumage consisted 



* In the British Museum are several similar specimens, particularly two remarkably 

 fine ones, lately shot in Kent, by Thomas Law Hodges, Esii- of Hempsted Place, near 

 Cranbrook, and by him presented to the Museum. — C. 



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