FREAKS AND ODDITIES 47 



Ring-necked Pheasant are ever shot or snared in the 

 proper home of this Eastern bird, I am at present un- 

 able to say. Most of the European game birds are 

 hable to exhibit melanistic variations of colouring ; but 

 I have not come across a black pheasant of either sex 

 so far. 



A curious fact in the zoology of the pheasant is 

 the comparative frequency with which the livery of 

 the cock pheasant is assumed by birds of the oppo- 

 site sex. This peculiarity is not by any means 

 confined to the pheasant. I have myself dissected 

 examples of one or two species of wild ducks which 

 exemphfied such a departure from rules ; and my friend 

 Mr. J. H. Gurney has drawn up quite a long list of 

 birds, the females of which have been known to assume 

 the dress of the male in a perfect or partial degree. It 

 may safely be assumed,, however, that this curious 

 biological phenomenon has occurred far more persis- 

 tently in the case of the Common Pheasant than ot 

 any other bird. As long ago as the year 1 8 1 2, Blumen- 

 bach read a paper on this theme before the Gottingen 

 Royal Society, enumerating ten species in which he 

 had ascertained such an aberration of conduct to 

 occur. 



In France, Geoffrey St.-Hilaire published a paper 

 entitled ' Femelles de Faisan a Plumage de Males,' in 



