ABSTRACT
A biological truism holds that the male of a vertebrate species is likely to maintain a higher erythrocyte count, hemoglobin level, and hematocrit than the female. This is indeed the documented case in the adult human (Kjeldsberg et al. 1989). This semidictum is also evident in the specic case of a member of the antecedent phylogenetic class (the Avians), the domestic chicken (Gallus domesticus), the most numerous of all the birds in the world (reviewed in detail in Glomski and Pica [2011]). Another example is the small male Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) that exhibits a signicantly higher Rbc count, Hb, and Hct than the considerably largersized corresponding female (Nirmalan et al. 1971; Glomski and Pica 2011).
