Female Plieasaiii Dunning Partial .>^aic Plumage. 245 
Female Pheasant Donning Partial Male Plumage. 
By Wesley T. Page, F.Z.S., M.B.O.U. 
In a former article, on my Ring-necked Pheasants 
{I'liasianus torqiiatus), I mentioned that my fellow member 
Capt. J. S. Reeves kindly- sent me four hens from his coverts 
as mates for some males I had. Three of these were mated 
to males of their own species, viz : impure P. torqiiatus, the 
other one was given to a bachelor Gold Pheasant {Chrysolophus 
f^ictiis), which was bred by the late Dr. Lovell-Keays. it is of the 
l.-'.tter torqiiatus female I think a few notes will be of interest. 
She settled down almost at once with her gorgeous mate ; 
last year quite a number of eggs were laid, but she neither made 
a nest nor showed any desire to incubate. Of these some 
couple of dozen were put under bantam hens, but all the eggs 
were infertile — I should say the previous year quite a few Golden 
Pheasants were reared under silky hens, of which the same 
cock was the father. This year only one egg was picked up 
(rats have access to this run and may have taken some eggs, 
but tliey had not done so in former years), and the hen made 
no nest, neither did she become broody. About six 
weeks ago slie went into heavy moult — a fortnight ago 
(now October uSih) Mr. W illiams was spending the week end 
with me, and we noticed that this hen was coming very dark 
about the head and neck ; we suspected she was going to put on 
male plumage, hui the moult was not anything Hke complete, 
and at a stage in which no definite opinion could be formed. 
The moult is now complete and proves our surmise to have been 
correct. 1 should say the hen was about four years old. 
Her head and neck plumage is perfect male torqiiatus. 
even to the inclusion of a ])artial white neck ring, but lacks the 
scarlet skin round the eyes. Her body, wings and tail are all 
more or less variegated (mottled) with the male plumage, the 
tail being about intermediate in length between those of normal 
male and female. I am quite aware that many similar cases 
have previously occurred, but usually these have been attributed 
to old age, but this cannot apply to my hen, as I should not call 
a lien pheasant aged at four years. It should be noted, however, 
that all her eggs which were tested in 19J0 were infertile, and 
that this year she has laid but few, possibly only one, which 
certainly rather points to some lack of vigour. 
