420 RASORES. PHASIANUS. Pheasant. 



to its internal membrane, and causes deatli by sufFocatioia 

 from the inflamed state of the part. Many recipes for the 

 cure of this fatal malady have been suggested, but none of 

 them seem to be effectual except the one recommended by 

 Montagu,* viz. fumigation by tobacco, found to be an in- 

 fallible specific when administered with due care and atten- 

 tion. 



In the wild state, as well as under confinement, the female 

 t Pheasant is frequently subject to that singular lusns natui'CB, 

 the acquisition of a plumage resembling that of the male 

 bird ; the cause of which change, it should appear from the 

 investigations hitherto made, may be attributed to the ad- 

 vanced age of the individual, or, in younger birds, to some 

 derangement of the generative organs ; as the birds which 

 have experienced this change in a confined state have ever 

 afterwards proved barren.* The same phenomenon occurs 

 in the Pea-hen, and the common domestic fowl, and proba- 

 bly, on further inquiry, the same tendency will be found pre- 

 vailing, not only in birds of this order, but in all species, as 

 the natural effect of age, sterility, or other peculiar changes 

 of constitvition. 



The Pheasant is now found numerously distributed through 

 a great part of Europe ; and in its native limits, the empires 

 of Asia, it is very abundant. 



Plate 57. Male and female Pheasants ; the latter of the 

 natural size, the former of about three-fifth parts. 

 General Bill pale wine-yellow. Irides pale brownish-orange, 

 descnp- Cheeks naked, papillose, of the brightest scarlet-red, 



Male. 



* Sea Supplement to Ornith. Diet, article Pheasant, where wiU be 

 found some interesting particulars respecting this disease, and also the 

 change of plumage to which the females of the gallinaceous order are sub- 

 ject. 



^ A very interesting paper on the change of plumage in hen birds, by 

 John Butter, Esq. F. L. S., M. W. S., is to be found in the 3d vol. of 

 the Memoirs of the Wernerian Society, to which my readers are referred. 



