38 ON CERTAIN CHANGES IN THE PLUMAGE OF THE PHEASANT. 
TV.—On Certain Changes in the Plumage of the Pheasant. By the 
Right Hon. Lord Ravensworts. 
A coop deal has been previously written on those singular 
changes of plumage which are remarked in old specimens of 
females among the pheasant and other gallinaceous tribes, attri- 
butable in ordinary cases to the effect of age, sterility, or other 
changes of constitution. In two instances within my experience 
a female of the wild breed of Duck (Anas Boschas ) has assumed 
the plumage of the drake, one of which specimens will probably 
be exhibited to the Naturalists’ Club on the occasion of this 
paper being read. Both these examples were known to be birds 
of considerable age. I shall not dwell longer upon these phe- 
nomena in the case of females, further than to state that I have 
sometimes, though rarely, observed in female pheasants where no 
change of plumage had occurred, another attribute of the male sex 
in the appearance of spurs. These are always short, and more 
commonly are found only on one leg; but they are strong, and 
sharp. A specimen shot last week of the hen pheasant, with the 
spur on both legs, is now in the hands of Duncan for preservation. 
These instances are more rare than that change of plumage which 
constitutes what is generally called by sportsmen “a Mule Bird.” 
But besides these cases, I have recently noticed in many 
instances a change in the plumage of the male pheasant, which 
(as far as I know) has never yet been described by Naturalists. 
This change is the converse of the former. In these cases the cock 
bird partially acquires the plumage of the hen. In a very pe- 
culiar example now before me, which was shot here some twelve 
or fourteen years ago, the scapular feathers, the wing coverts, and 
the whole wing, the tail coverts, and the tail itself, precisely re- 
semble the female, and exhibit none of those brilliant colours and 
distinctive markings with which we are all familiar in the matured 
plumage of the cock pheasant. The plumage also of the belly is 
pale and flushed with grey feathers. The bird, however, was killed 
at the end of the winter, when the plumage is in the highest 
order. It was quite alone, and at a distance from any of the 
