132 
THE POULTRY BOOK. 
published an account of these cases, illustrated by drawings of dissections, in the 
Philosophical Transactions for 1827, and his ‘History of British Birds,’ vol. ii., 
page 319. The same change of plumage, arising from a similar cause, also occurs 
occasionally in the hen of the common domestic fowl {Gallus domesticns) , although 
a barren hen more commonly assumes merely the comb and wattles (?f the male 
without changing the appearance of the feathers. Some very well-marked 
specimens of this latter change were deposited by me in the museum of the 
Royal College of Surgeons two or three years since. The variation illustrated by 
the specimens exhibited by me to the members of the Zoological Society, March 
26, 1861, is the converse of that which has been mentioned, it being the assump- 
tion of the female plumage by the adult male. 
“It is well known that there are certain breeds of domestic fowl the males of 
which are always more or less hen-feathered ; the most remarkable of these is the 
Sebright bantam. In this breed, however, the variation is hereditary, and the 
young cocks are as hen-feathered as their progenitors. Under the title of 
hen-cocks, certain game fowls acquired a high degree of notoriety for their prowess 
in the cock-pit. I have an engraving, representing a bird of this description that 
was formerly the property of George Edwards, the jockey who rode Phosphorus 
and Variation when they won the Derby and the Oaks. He is represented as 
trimmed for fighting, and is described as “Hector, a hen-cock.” The late Mr. 
Caldwell informed me that he perfectly remembered the bird, and that he was 
notorious as having won a Welsh main — the most trying test of courage and 
endurance to which a game cock can be subjected. The peculiarity of plumage 
was hereditary in this variety of fowls. 
“ The specimen that I exhibited to the society was bred by myself, and had never 
been out of my possession, consequently I was able to describe with great certainty 
the remarkable changes that it underwent ; and as I have been breeding from the 
strain some years, I can speak without doubt as to there being no cross of any 
description introduced. The cock, Avhose portrait in his hen-feathered condition 
was engraved from a photograph, was hatched in the spring of 1859, his parents 
being of the variety known as brov/n-breasted red game bantams. When seven 
months old he assumed the full male plumage at his autumnal moult, and I pre- 
served him as my best stock bird for the next season. 
“ During the year 1860 I bred some very good chickens from him. At the 
autumnal moult of that year, however, he lost all his cock-feathers ; those of the 
neck, of the saddle, and the streaming sickle feathers of the tail, alike disappeared, 
their places being supplied by feathers which, both in form and colour, were the 
exact counterpart of those of a hen of the same variety. This wonderful chamge 
was attended with slight increase of size, a great increase of combativeness, and 
certainly did not depend on any loss of generative pov/er, as in the early part of 
the next year I sent him with a couple of hens to a run removed from other fowls, 
and hatched several strong healthy broods from the eggs. 
“ Some of the cocks were full mnle-plumnge birds of very superior character; a 
