270 
Mr. Yarrell on the 
healthy female to contrast with the preparations of such as 
were in a diseased state, a hen-pheasant in the natural plu- 
mage was opened for examination ; but in this instance disease 
prevailed throughout the whole of the ovarium, but had not 
affected the oviduct ; proving, that this disease exists in the 
sexual organs previous to the change in the feather ; and this 
corresponds with the recorded observations of others, where 
hen-pheasants in confinement, and females of the common- 
fowl in the poultry yard, had been known to have ceased 
producing eggs two years before any change was observed in 
their plumage. 
That the obliteration of the true character of the female or- 
gans by disease, and the consequent alteration of feather, takes 
place at various periods, are inferred from the following cir- 
cumstances. Among the large broods of young pheasants, 
frequently from fifty to one hundred birds in number, which 
some gamekeepers are exceedingly successful in rearing by 
hand, produced from eggs laid by birds in confinement, nests 
deserted from various causes, or eggs exposed by mowing . 
it is by no means unusual in the months of August and Sep- 
tember, when the young birds put forth the first plumage 
indicative of the sex, that one or two females are observed to 
produce the brighter coloured feathers of the male. These 
birds are then about four months old only. In two instances, 
among the hen-pheasants before mentioned, as shot in a wild 
state, some of the first plumage, usually called nest feathers, 
had not been shed, evidence sufficient to prove that they also 
were both birds of the year. 
A partridge sent me by a friend in December last, on ac- 
count of its having a white bar across the breast, and the 
