HENS IN COCKS' FEATHERS 71 



A mule pheasant is a sterile hen who has assumed 

 more or less the plumage of a cock. We cannot 

 say we have ever heard one of these trans- 

 Hens in formed hens give vent to a crow. But 

 Cocks' 

 Feathers once we owned a game-bantam hen, who, 



without changing into cock's plumage, 

 crowed in a way that would have done credit to 

 any fine rooster. The keeper does not appreciate 

 a barren hen pheasant, whether or not she wears 

 cock's feathers. She is an unproductive loafer, and 

 is likely to be destructive to the chicks of other 

 hens, both to wild ones and those reared artificially. 

 Disappointed in motherhood herself, she is jealous 

 that others should be mothers. 



Pheasants' eggs vary strangely in shade : they show 



a much wider range of shading than partridges', 



from almost white through the most delicate 



About gradations of blue-green and olive-brown 

 Nesting . . , 



Pheasants ^ the rich, warm hue of the nightingale s 



egg. The keeper prefers the eggs with the 

 deeper tones, persuading himself that they will 

 produce the strongest chicks. He has small faith in 

 the fertility of eggs that are very light in hue, and 

 he holds to an idea that if a light, sky-blue egg hatches 

 at all it will produce a pied chick. When a hen lays 

 in another's nest, it is rather by some subtle distinc- 

 tion of shape than by colour that the keeper dis- 



