36 The Natural History of British Game Birds 
Another pied Blackcock, killed in Wigtownshire, was presented to the British 
Museum in 1908 by Mr. G. Ashley Dodd. The normal plumage is covered with crescent- 
shaped bars of white. 
There are at least ten whole or partial albinoes in the Bergen Museum, and I have 
lately seen a very fine white Blackcock in the small museum at Khristianssand. I only 
know of one example of the Blackcock assuming the plumage of the female, that of a 
specimen in the Hon. W. Rothschild's collection, which I have figured. The bird is 
supposed to have been taken in Russia. 
Cases of barren females assuming the plumage of the male are so common, that I 
will not enumerate them. I have seen at least 100 British examples, and every season 
a few pass into the taxidermist's hands. Most of these possess almost black under parts 
with white edgings, the throat white, like the Blackcock in eclipse, and the whole of 
the upper parts very dark and grizzled, a mixture of the plumage of both sexes. The 
under tail-coverts are generally white, or white with black markings, whilst the outer tail 
feathers are black, and inclined to curl outwards. A very beautiful female, scarcely 
darker than the ordinary type, in my collection possessed a perfectly shaped Blackcock's 
tail. It was killed in Perthshire about fifteen years ago. This variety is very rare, and 
I have only seen one other example, now in the Bergen Museum. 
