A mule pheasant is a sterile hen who has assumed more or less the
plumage of a cock. We cannot say we have ever heard one of these
transformed hens give vent to a crow. But once we owned a game-bantam
hen, who, without changing into cock's plumage, crowed in a way
that would have done credit to any fine rooster. The keeper does
not appreciate a barren hen pheasant, whether or not she wears
cock's feathers. She is an unproductive loafer, and is likely to be
destructive to the chicks of other hens, both to wild ones and those
reared artificially. Disappointed in motherhood herself, she is jealous
that others should be mothers.
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