Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/128

100 quill, and this seems to be most frequently produced by the damp coast breezes. Hens also vary in body-colour to an equal extent, though, in their case, the differences are not very conspicuous, the colours not being so strongly contrasted. They range from a dark rich brown to light brown, grey, or ash. I have had several hens with each feather ("feminas" excepted) barred across with white at about a quarter of its length from the tip, and one which had the perfect black plumage of a cock.

The colour of the unfeathered parts of chicks is yellow, which gradually changes to flesh-colour, and, as the adult stage is reached, either remains flesh-coloured, though of not so pronounced a tint, or changes to bluish or leaden—nearly always bluish. Variations not only in colour, but in texture, thickness, and strength of the skin, are both great and frequent. The colour of the neck varies also, in both sexes, from dark—nearly black in the case of the cock and deep brown in the hen—to almost white. The colour of the eye even varies; generally it is brown, but grey is not unknown.

Chicks may be divided into two lots, of about equal number, by the colour of the scales of the tarsi and toes. Some have light brown scales, the others dark brown. There is no grading from one tint to another; the line of demarcation is clear and unmistakable. The dark-scaled are by some farmers said to be cocks, the light-scaled hens. My attention was only drawn to this peculiarity shortly before retiring from Ostrich-farming; I cannot therefore express a decided opinion, not having had an opportunity of testing whether the statement is correct.

At any rate, the scales of the hens invariably remain brown, but those of the cocks change to flesh-colour, varying from nearly white to brilliant crimson. Cocks' legs do not often lose all trace of the crimson tint, though its intensity varies with the seasons, being brightest in a fat bird in the height of his sexual vigour in the breeding season, and faintest when a bird is in a