1906. J ON ABNORMAL TAIL-FEATHERS OF A PHEASANT. 635 



The liver was tough and showed evidence of passive congestion. 



The suprarenal glands also seemed tougher than they should 



have been, but no excess of fibrous tissue existed, and the relation 



of cortex and medulla seemed normal. Osteoarthritis existed in 



the large joints of both fore and hind limbs. 



Considerable interest attaches to this case, since when Dr. 

 R. ]Sr. Salaman read a note before this Society two years * ago on 

 the death of the Polar Bear from the burstiiag of a false aneurysm, 

 he was able to quote Professor McFadyean to the effect that he 

 knew of no case of aneurysm in wild animals, and that this 

 condition is extremely rare in the domestic carnivora. 



Dr. Seligmann also exhibited some tail-feathers from a Common 

 Pheasant i^Phasianus colchicus), showing the markings peculiar 

 to both sexes, and made^' the following remarks : — -The feathers 

 exhibited are derived from the tail of a cock of the Common 

 Pheasant which is still alive, and which during the greater part 

 of 1905 was deposited for observation in the Society's Gardens. 

 The feathers were removed in July 1903 from the bird, then 

 said to be between two and three years old. All of them 

 show the same change ; that is to say, the distal portion of each 

 feather is male in pattern and colouring, while the proximal 

 portion of the web shows the female character of these qualities. 

 The bird from which these feathers were deiived has shown no 

 changes in any other part of its plumage, nor have its sexual 

 habits been otherwise than normally male, and during the spring 

 of the present year it fertilised a number of eggs. At the present 

 time its appearance is fully male, and this has been the case ever 

 since the summer of 1903, when the feathers shown, and others 

 similarly marked, constituted the bird's tail. The history of this 

 bird is that about Christmas, 1902, the base of the feathers of the 

 tail, which were then predominantly male, began to show the 

 female colouring and patterning at their bases, and that this 

 spread as the feathers grew till in July 1903 the present 

 condition was present. Unluckily there is no information as to 

 its behaviour during the breeding-season of 1903, but probably 

 its behaviour was normally male. The specimens shown have 

 been deposited in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, 

 and one of them has been figured by Mr. S. G. Shattock and 

 myself in the ' Transactions of the Pathological Society of London ' 

 for the current year. 



The following papers were read : — 



* Redcliffe N. Salaman : " On the Cause of Death of a Polar Bear recently living 

 in the Society's Gardens," Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. 1903, ii. p. 3i8. 



