Vol. XIV 
867 General Notes. 8 a 
GENERAL NOTES. 
The Nostrils in Young Cormorants. — Through the kindness of Mr. R. 
C. McGregor and Mr. Curtis Clay Young I have come into the possession 
of a considerable series of crania of Cormorants, from a very early stage 
of incubation up to the twenty-eighth day after hatching. In the old- 
est of these skulls the external nostrils are still open, and the bones of the 
palate have not coalesced, and the probabilities are, as already stated, that 
the external nostrils close about the time the young Cormorants take to 
the water and begin to feed themselves.— F. A. Lucas, Washington, D.C, 
Labrador Duck.—In the Museum at Amiens in France, which is 
located in a temporary and very unworthy building by the river, I was 
surprised to come across a fine adult male Labrador Duck, Camftolazmus 
labradorius, in good preservation. It was unknown to Mr. William 
Dutcher when revising the list of extant specimens (Auk, 1891, p. 201), 
but I conclude that it is probably one of the specimens which he men- 
tions to have been sent to Europe by Mr. John Akhurst prior to 1850 (of. 
ctt., 1893, p. 270). —J. H. GurNEy, Keswick Hall, Norwich, England. 
Nesting of the Larger White-cheeked Goose (Branta canadens?s occé- 
dental’s) in Okanogan Co., Wash.— In May, 1896, a nest of this species 
was located in the gorge of the Columbia River due east of Chelan. A 
visit paid to it on May 13 led me through a wild stretch where the cliffs 
press in upon the swirling river. I began to walk softly over a rocky 
point which projected over the stream at about fifty feet above high- 
water mark. I had seen a Goose push out from the shore below and 
hoped his mate might be on the nest. I was not to be disappointed, for 
as I rose over the crest of the rocky point the mother Goose flew off with 
a loud squawk, and I had in addition a vision of something green flying 
through the air. Ina shelf of rock commanding the river below three 
green goslings, newly hatched, were resting on a bed oft down. Pale 
green egg shells were lying about the nest as a reminder of what might 
have been. The green thing “flying through the air” proved to bea 
fourth gosling which Mother Goose had knocked off the nest in her haste, 
but I rescued him from a cleft in the rock twenty feet below, where he 
had been fortunately caught before striking the fierce current of the river, 
and returned him apparently none the worse for his tumble. The nest- 
lings were in general of a bright grass-green color mottled with a shade 
of olive. The nest was entirely composed of soft down from the Goose’s 
breast. 
The Larger White-cheeked Geese are the first birds to arrive in the 
Chelan valley in February, and they leave the wheat fields, reluctantly 
enough, in December. Their breeding in the county seems to be alto- 
