50 GAME BIRDS AND SHOOTING-SKETCHES 



Ballathie, Perthshire, I became the fortunate possessor of 

 the beautiful variety figured on p. 47. This is, I believe, 

 the only known British variety, and its extreme rarity 

 may be judged from the fact that, out of thousands and 

 thousands of Caper that are annually received from 

 Norway, Sweden, Russia, and Germany, as yet no other 

 albino, or variety, has appeared in the London markets, 

 although numbers of naturalists and the game -dealers 

 themselves are constantly on the look-out for such 

 varieties. 1 



Instances occasionally occur amongst birds of the 

 female assuming the plumage of the male, but with this 

 species it is somewhat rare, and most of those which I 

 have examined have been in the first stap-e of chano-e ; 



o o ' 



and whether in course of time they would have completely 

 assumed the dress of the male, in proportion to the 

 destruction of the ovaries, is hard to judge, as the subject 

 has not been fairly worked out. Having dissected a large 

 number of hen Pheasants in various stages of this change, 

 I have found that the assumption of the male plumage 

 seems to vary in proportion to the state of the ovaries 

 although not invariably so, for sometimes the bird had 

 nearly complete male plumage when the ovaries appeared 

 quite healthy ; but I have not the scientific knowledge to 

 enable me to discover abnormalities which are not apparent 

 to the ordinary observer. I may have overlooked some 

 vital points, and the bird might have been suffering 



1 There are beautiful varieties of the Capercaillie in the Lund, Bergen, 

 St. Petersburg, and Christiania Museums, and the best foreign examples in 

 this country are in the museum of the Hon. W. Rothschild at Tring. The 

 late Mr. J. Marshall, of Taunton, also had a very handsome cream-coloured 

 variety, which he obtained from Russia. 



