273 
change in the plumage of some hen-pheasants. 
enlarge, and the connexion between the sexual organs and 
those of the voice are not less remarkable in the females than 
that before observed to exist in the male. She makes an 
imperfect attempt to imitate the crow of the cock, there is 
an increase in the size of the comb, and a spur or spurs 
shoot out, but remain short and blunt. The plumage under- 
goes an alteration, which is called by the breeders getting 
foul feathered, becoming hackled in form, and altered in 
colour. But a more singular point is, the peculiar shape of 
the lower part of the back in these birds, from the want of 
that enlargement of the bones, observed in all true females, 
by which they obtain a breadth of pelvis sufficient to allow a 
safe passage to the perfect egg, an object the more particu- 
larly necessary, when it is recollected that a slight fracture of 
its brittle shell is sufficient to prevent the developement of 
the chick. 
As the object in performing this operation upon fowls is to 
gain an increase in size, still preserving the delicate texture 
of the flesh, these birds when ten or twelve months old are 
sent off to the London markets, and farther observation pre- 
vented ; but so great is the similarity at this age between 
some examples of this description, that it is frequently diffi- 
cult to determine the sex by such external characters as 
remain. Thus^males and females, becoming as it were neuter 
in gender by the deprivation of the sexual organs, put on a 
corresponding appearance, and both assume characters deci- 
dedly intermediate between the true sexes. 
The influence exercised by the sexual organs upon the 
r colour of the feathers, as well as the voice, is not confined to 
this effect alone. The summer plumage of some birds, and 
mdcccxxvii. N n 
