On Male Plumage of the Hen of the Domestic Foivl. 299 
assume the plumage of cocks ; and the same change occurs 
in hen pheasants and pea-hens, but at more indeterminate 
periods of life, and less in connection with advanced age. 
Dr J. A. Smith {Proc. Phys, Soc., Jan. 26, 1859) records the 
cases of three hen pheasants exhibiting the change of plum- 
age, and at the same meeting Captain Orde stated that he 
]]ad examined other specimens. 
The male characters exhibited by the bantam hen de- 
scribed in this communication were evidently correlated 
with the advanced age of the bird, and may be compared 
with the assumption of a beard and a harsher tone of voice 
not unfrequently occurring in the aged human female. The 
atrophied condition of the ovary, and the necessary cessation 
of ovulation, are also to be ascribed to the same cause. Pre- 
vious writers have directed attention to the not unfrequent 
occurrence of an atrophied or diseased condition of the 
ovaries, or an obstructed state of the oviduct, in hen birds 
possessing male plumage, and this not only in aged birds, 
but in young specimens. So that the change of plumage 
would appear, in these cases at least, to be correlated with 
an impairment or complete stoppage of the ovarian func- 
tions, though it should be stated that some isolated instances 
have been recorded, as in one of the hen pheasants described 
by Dr J. A. Smith, in which the ovaries were perfectly 
healthy, and contained numerous ova. 
The author considered that the loose bodies found in the 
abdominal cavity, as well as those of a similar structure 
attached by adhesive bands to certain of the abdominal 
viscera of the bantam hen, were aborted or degenerated ova, 
which had not entered the ovarian duct, but had escaped 
into the peritoneal cavity, and had either remained free, or 
had assumed connections to adjacent viscera. A. W. Otto 
{Seltene Beobachtungen, Breslau, 1816, p. 137) appears to 
have met with a body of a similar character, but of much 
larger size, in the peritoneal cavity of a hen he examined. 
It was invested with a false vascular membrane, and pos- 
sessed a distinct capsule containing a yellow yelk-like sub- 
stance. He regarded it as a degenerated ovum. 
VOL. III. 2 Q 
