Chap. VII. SEXUAL DIFFERENCES. 2G5 



times are partially sterile seems clear/® but this may have 

 been caused by too close interbreeding. That they are not 

 quite sterile, and that the whole case is widely different from 

 that of old females assuming masculine characters, is evident 

 from s 'veral of these hen-like sub-breeds having been long 

 propagated. The males and females of gold and silver-laced 

 Sebright Bantams can bo barely distinguished from each 

 other, except by their combs, wattles, and spurs, for they are 

 coloured alike, and the males have not hackles, nor the 

 flowing sickle-like tail-feathers. A hen-tailed sub-breed of 

 Ilamburghs was recently much esteemed. There is also a 

 breed of Game-fowls, in which the males and females resemble 

 each other so closely that the cocks have often mistaken their 

 hen-feathered opponents in the cock-pit for real hens, and by 

 the mistake have lost their lives.*' The cocks, though 

 dressed in the feathers of the hen, " are high-spirited birds, 

 and their courage has been often proved : " an engraving 

 even has been published of one celebrated hen-tailed victor. 

 Mr. Tegetmeier ** has recorded the remarkable case of a 

 brown-breasted red Game cock which, after assuming its 

 perfect masculine plumage, became hen feathered in the 

 autumn of the following year ; but he did not lose voice, 

 spurs, strength, nor productiveness. This bird has now 

 retained the same character during five seasons, and has 

 begot both hen-feathered and male-feathered offspring. Mr. 

 Grantley T. Berkeley relates the still more singular case of a 

 celebrated strain of " polecat Game fowls," which produced in 

 nearly every brood a single hen-cock. " The great peculiarity 

 in one of these birds was that he, as the seasons succeeded 

 each other, was not always a hen-cock, and not always of the 

 colour called the polecat, which is black. From the polecat 

 and hen-cock feather in one season he moulted to a full male- 

 plumaged black-breasted red, and in the following year he 

 returned to the former feather." *^ 



■"* Mr. Hewitt in Tegetmeier's a-dozen cocks thus sacrificed. 

 'Poultry Book,' 1866, pp. 246 and ** 'Proceedings of Zoolog. Soc' 



156. For hen-tailed game-cocks, see March, 1861, p. 102. The engraving 



p. 131. of the hen-tailed cock just alluded to 



" '.The Field,' April 20th, 1861. was exhibited before the Society. 

 The writer says he has seen half- " 'The Field,' April 20th, 1861. 



