OBSERVATIONS QJ BIRDS. 293 



LAND-RAIL. A man brought me a land-rail, or daker-hen, 

 a bird so rare in this district, that we seldom see more than 

 one or two in a season, and these only in autumn. This is 

 deemed a bird of passage by all the writers ; yet, from its 

 formation, seems to be poorly qualified for migration ; for its 

 wings are short, and placed so forward, and out of the centre 

 of gravity, that it flies in a very heavy and embarrassed manner, 

 with its legs hanging down ; and can hardly be sprung a second 

 time, as it runs very fast, and seems to depend more on the 

 swiftness of its feet than on its flying. 



of the male-feathered pea-hen now to be seen in the Leverian Museum ; 

 and M. Salerne remarks, that " the hen pheasant, when she has done 

 laying and sitting, will get the plumage of the male." May not this 

 hybrid pheasant, as Mr White calls it, be a bird of this kind ? that is, an 

 old hen pheasant, which had just begun to assume the plumage of the 

 cock. MARK WICK. 



We have already noticed this curious subject, in our note at page 93. 

 The facts of the female bird assuming the plumage of the male, which 

 have been recorded by authors, are the following: pea-hen, by Hunter; 

 turkey, by Bechstein ; common pheasant, by Hunter ; golden pheasant, 

 by Blumenbach ; the domestic hen, by Aristotle, Tucker, and Butter ; the 

 partridge, by Montagu ; the domestic pigeon, by Tiedmann ; the bustard, 

 by Tiedmann ; American pelican, by Catesby ; common wild duck, by 

 Tiedmann. Some years ago, a female golden pheasant, in the possession of 

 the Duke of Buccleugh, assumed the male plumage. Mr Falconer of 

 Carlowrie, member of the Wernerian Society, knew a domestic duck 

 assume the garb of the drake ; and a nobleman in Devonshire had a 

 female wild duck, which made a similar change. Lord Glenlee lately pre- 

 sented to the Edinburgh College Museum a pea-hen with the male attire. 



Dr Butter, who has bestowed much attention to this subject, comes to 

 the three following conclusions : 1st, That in order to separate and 

 distinguish the sexes, Nature has affixed certain external characters, 

 proper to each. 2d, That in early life, the differences between the male 

 and female are scarcely observable, but that at a certain period, the male 

 assumes characteristic distinctions, denominated by Mr Hunter, " secon- 

 dary properties," which the female then wants. Od, That the female 

 seldom makes an advance towards these secondary properties, until her 

 powers of procreation are gone, when an inclination to resemble the mas- 

 culine form takes place. And he considers, as this principle is common 

 to all females, it is not a monstrous occurrence, as some authors have 

 termed it. 



It is not generally known, that pheasants are beneficial to the farmer. 

 This fact was fully proved in 1821, at Whitney Court, where Tomkins 

 Day, Esq. shot a hen pheasant, that excited the notice of the sportsmen 

 present, from the immense size of its craw, which, on being opened, was 

 found to contain more than half a pint of that destructive insect, the wire 

 worm. ED. 



