General 
descrip- 
tion. 
Male. 
302 GALLINAH. PHASIANUS. PHEASANT. 
Pheasant is frequently subject to that singular dusus nature, 
the acquisition of a plumage resembling that of the male bird ; 
the cause of which change it should appear from the investi- 
gations hitherto made, may be attributed to the advanced 
age of the individual, or, in younger birds, to some derange- 
ment of the generative organs ; as the birds which have ex- 
perienced 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 probably, on far- 
ther inquiry, the same tendency will be found prevailing, not 
only in birds of this order, but in all species, as the natural 
effect of age, sterility, or other peculiar changes of constitution. 
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. 
Prater 57. Male and female Pheasants; the latter of the 
natural size, the former of about three-fifth parts. 
Bill pale wine-yellow. Irides pale brownish-orange. Cheeks 
naked, papillose, of the brightest scarlet-red, with mi- 
nute black specks. Crown of the head bronzed green ; 
the feathers rather elongated, and silky. On each side 
of the occiput is a tuft of dark golden-green feathers 
that can be erected at pleasure, and are very conspi- 
cuous in the pairing season. Upper part of the neck 
dark green, with purple and violet-blue reflections. 
Lower part of neck, breast and flanks, deep reddish- 
orange, shewing, in some positions, beautiful light 
purple reflections; the feathers heart-shaped, or cloven 
towards the tip, bordered and terminated with pansy- 
purple. Middle of the belly and thighs blackish-brown ; 
in younger birds mixed with reddish-brown. Exterior 
border of the upper back, and scapular feathers deep 
* A very interesting paper on the change of plumage in hen birds, by 
Joun Burrter, Esq. I. 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. 
