PHEASANT. 211 



an outward appearance upon, and influencing, the senses, as will 

 appear by reading, attentively, the st >ry from the 25th to the 

 43d verse : and besides the peeled rods obtruded before the eyes 

 of the cattle during the time of conception, he set * the faces of 

 the flocks toward the ring-streaked and all the brown in the flock 



of Laban." 



i 



" If then beasts may be affected by impression, or the operation 

 of an outward appearance on the senses, is it unreasonable to 

 suppose, that birds may be affected in the same manner ? and if 

 by having peeled rods placed before them, and their ' faces set 

 toward the ring-streaked,' an impression was made on these 

 cattle, causing them to produce their young of that colour, may 

 not the same cause have the same effect on pheasants? and the 

 hen pheasant, by being among white fowls, and having them 

 before her eyes, bo the mother of young, of a pied or white 

 colour? 



" But it will )K> said, ' Here are fowls of several colours besides 

 white, with which pheasants are likely to mix in the fields, and 

 this will destroy the probability of pheasants becoming white by 

 impression made on the hen pheasant, since, as there are black 

 and brown fowls, why should not pheasants become black or 

 brown from the same cause?' 



" " It is submitted, in answer to this objection, that a white 

 fowl is of a more glaring and obtrusive colour than any other, and 

 consequently more likely to catch the eye, and make a stronger 

 impression on the hen pheasant, from its striking peculiarity, and, 

 as it respects the pheasant, deformity. 



" But further, though we often hear of a variety of any par- 

 ticular species of bird, yet that variety is almost always either 

 white, or a mixture of white with the natural colour. If among 

 birds there be a lusus naturae, she, in her freak, seldom deviates 

 from this colour. And notwithstanding these white varieties 

 may be fairly termed rarae aves, and although there are several 

 species naturally black, yet a black variety always has been con- 

 sidered a peculiar prodigy, as we may remember in that well 

 known line in the mouth of every schoolboy. And among fowls 



P 2 



