PLUMAGE IN HEN-BIRDS. 189 



rence ; but upon this point I am not prepared to 

 speak decidedly. 



In a work entitled " Ornithologia Danmonien- 

 " sis," commenced by A. G. C. Tucker, Esq. of 

 Ashburton, there is given a brief account of a do- 

 mestic hen, which changed her feathers after moult- 

 ing, to those of the cock ; but as the dissection is 

 not furnished, little positive inference can be drawn 

 from it, except that it adds another fact to those be- 

 fore stated. I may likewise remark, that I have not 

 found this circumstance mentioned in any other 

 English work which I have consulted. 



It is somewhat remarkable, that our ornithological 

 writers have not extended their observations upon 

 this subject, beyond the pheasant and pea-hen ; at 

 least almost all who speak of the changes of plu- 

 mage in the pheasant, &c. and who make allusions to 

 Mr Hunter's paper, fail to notice those changes in 

 the domestic hen that I have now described. 



White, in his Natural History of Selbourne, after 

 describing what he calls a Hybrid Pheasant, asks, 

 if it be not likely, that it is an old hen-pheasant, just 

 beginning to assume the plumage of the cock. Mr 

 Latham also observes, that pea-hens, after they have 

 done laying, sometimes assume the plumage of the 

 male-bird, and gives a figure of a male-feathered pea- 

 hen, which was then to be seen in the Leverian Mu- 

 seum. Bewick quotes Mr Hunter's paper on this 

 subject when speaking of the pheasant ; but none of 



