ABSTRACT
C. M. Hawkey has established that adult male birds often have higher hemoglobin and hematocrit levels than adult females. Thus, of the surveyed ten Families of birds the men of five Families had both Heinz bodies and Hct values that exceeded those of their female counterparts. These were the Spheniscidae, Ciconiidae, Falconidae, Gruidae and Phasianidae. The hemoglobin concentration of the blood in egg-laying chickens has been described as lower than that of non-laying hens. Though the significance has yet to be fully appreciated, it has been shown that the plasmalemma of mature white leghorn females’ erythrocytes has a higher proportion of oleic acid in relation to stearic acid than does the plasmalemma of males. The bases for the sex-correlated hematologic values that are expressed by some avians are multidimensional and not fully recognized. It is apparent that long term studies are required to establish under what circumstances and in which avian species sex-linked rbc-dependent characteristics are identifiable.
