Dr Lyon on Hereditary Transmission. 253 



Of the above five sets, sets 3, 4, and 5 are in E. E. Alston's 

 possession ; set 1 in Feilden's and my collection ; set 2 in 

 collection of Eev. C. M. Jones, Connecticut, U.S. One of 

 Alston's sets went to Dr Crowfoot of Beccles, Suffolk. In all 

 there were twenty-three eggs, one of set 5 having been broken. 



The measurements of six of the eggs are as follows : 



2 in. 4 lines by 1 in. 8 lines, in mus. Dr Crowfoot. 

 2 „ 2 „ by 1 „ 8 



2 „ 4 „ by 1 „ 6i 



2 „ 3i „ by 1 „ n. 



2 „ H „ by 1 „ 6i 



2 „ H ,, by] „ 6 



,, E. E. Alston — almost pyriform. 

 , , Feilden and Harvie- Brown — round oval. 

 ,, Rev. C. M. Jones — regular oval, 

 same set as second last mentioned. Last laid 

 egg of the set, smaller, and more oval than 

 the others of the same set. 



I was informed by another party of the unusual numbers of 

 lemmings {Lemmus Norvegieus) in 1872, it having been a 

 regular lemming year, which accounted for this unusual 

 irruption of the snowy owl and of the rough-legged buzzard 

 {Archihuteo lagopus) so far south as 61° N. lat. Even in 1871, 

 when Alston and I collected in Norway, lemmings were far 

 from scarce, and we caught and preserved various specimens. 



In the Ihis, 1865, p. 335, the first nest obtained in the 

 Scandinavian peninsula, as far as known, with the exception 

 of those recorded by Herr Lilljeborg Corfvers (K. Vet-Akad, 

 Forhand, 1844, p. 212), is taken notice of, as having been 

 obtained by Wheelwright — the old bushman — from some 

 Lapps. 



II. On Hereditary Transmission. By F. W. Lyon, Esq., M.D. 



It is an interesting thing to wander through a picture 

 gallery hung with portraits of the ancestors of an ancient 

 family, and seek to trace out among them some resemblance 

 either to those who lived in a former generation or flourished 

 at a later age. I was, for several years, the resident physician 

 in a very old and wealthy family in one of the western 

 counties of England. The house was built in the time of the 

 fourth Henry; the estate and it came into the possession 

 of the present family in the reign of Elizabeth, and they have 

 lived in it from that time until now. There is a grand old 

 hall there hung about with arms and armour used by the 

 VOL. IV. 2z 



