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THE PAINTED PHEASANT, FEMALE. 
Instead of being decorated with the gaudy and splendid tints of the male, 
her plumage is even inferior to the common hen Pheasant, her general co- 
lours being a combination of different shades of brown, rufous, tawny, and 
dusky white. She is likewise smaller than the male, the tail much shorter, 
and not arched ; the legs have no spurs. 
The feathers on the head form a small crest, which is only perceptible 
when she is agitated. She wants likewise the long stiff coverts of the tail, 
which so very particularly characterize the cock : yet there have been va- 
rious instances of its transmutation from the dusky colour into the brilliant 
lustre of the male; one in particular preserved in the menagery of the 
Countess of Essex, in the space of six years experienced this transformation, 
and was not to be distinguished from the cock, but from the colour of the 
eyes, and the shortness of the tail. 
It has been generally understood that this remarkable change of colour, 
whenever it takes place (it being accidental), usually happens to such hens 
as are four or five years old, when they are neglected by the cock; but Mr. 
Latham informs us, tiiat the change of plumage in the female is not confined 
to the Pheasant alone, but has frequently been observed in domestic poul- 
try, when spurs have also sprouted out on the legs of a hen, she crowed at in- 
tervals like a cock, and continued to lay eggs, and bred for some years af- 
tervvards. A Pea hen of Lady Tyntes’, after having many broods, assumed 
much of the plumage of the cock, with the fine train feathers of the tail. 
