THE PEOPLE'S PRACTICAL POULTRY BOOK. 



169 



however, carefully preserved for me by Mr. E. WARD of London, and the 

 engraving is a very faithful representation of her appearance. The converse 

 of the assumption of male plumage by the hen is the putting on the female 

 plumage by the cock. There are, as is well known, several varieties of domes- 

 tic poultry in which the cocks are hen-feathered, as in some breeds of Ham- 

 burgs and Game. This peculiarity is generally hereditary, and in the old 

 days of the cock-pit, hen-cocks were well known. There is, however, a re- 



FIG. 2. FERTILE HEN-FEATHKKED GAME BANTAM COCK. 



markable distinction between the two cases described. A hen that has 

 assumed the male plumage does so from being barren, and in consequence of 

 disease or degeneration of the ovary. A hen-feathered cock, on the con- 

 trary, is perfectly fertile, and usually produces chickens with plumage like his 

 own. The change of plumage from the full feather of the cock to the sober 

 attire of the hen has never, I believe, been recorded, except by myself. It 

 was a Game Bantam that was kept by me as a stock bird for his first season, 

 and that changed at the second autumnal molt into the plumage of a hen of 

 the same variety namely, brown-breasted red. During his second breeding 

 season, and as long as he lived afterwards, he produced chickens, some of 

 which were full-feathered cocks, and some hen-feathered like himself." 



