COMMON PHEASANT. 329 



word which signifies barren, and these hen Pheasants are 

 incapable of producing eggs, from derangement of the ge- 

 nerative organs ; sometimes an original internal defect, 

 sometimes from subsequent disease, and sometimes from 

 old age. The illustration given on the next page repre- 

 sents on a small scale a preparation of part of the body 

 of a healthy female Pheasant in winter, in the left-hand 

 figure ; and that of a diseased female Pheasant on the right 

 hand. The disorganization is marked by the appearance of 

 the dark lead colour pervading the ovarium, situated on the 

 middle line, and between the two kidneys, which dark 

 colour is seen in patches on various parts of the oviduct 

 below ; and I have never examined a hen Pheasant assum- 

 ing the plumage of the male without finding more or less 

 of the appearance here indicated. The subject, however, 

 in its details, is unsuited to this popular work ; but those 

 who desire to carry their investigation further will find a 

 paper by Dr. Butter in the third volume of the Memoirs 

 of the Wernerian Society ; one by John Hunter in the 

 various editions of his Animal (Economy, and one by my- 

 self, published in the Transactions of the Royal Society 

 for the year 1827. I have seen this disorganization and its 

 effects among birds in the Gold, Silver, and Common 

 Pheasants, in the Partridge, the Peafowl, the Common 

 Fowl, the Crowned Pigeon, the Kingfisher, and the Com- 

 mon Duck: in the latter species, in two instances, the 

 change went on even to the assumption of the two curled 

 feathers above the tail. Other classes of animals are liable 

 to an influence similar in kind, and the effect is singularly 

 conspicuous among insects and Crustacea. 



In the adult male the beak is of a whitish horn colour, 

 rather darker at the base ; the eyes surrounded with a naked 

 skin of a bright scarlet colour, speckled with a bluish black ; 

 the irides hazel ; the head, and the neck all round, steel blue, 



