NOTES AND QUERIES. 145 
measures from the frontal feathers to the tip from 3} inches in 
young birds to 8% inches in adults. The bill of the Great 
Northern Diver is black (paler at the tip in young birds), and 
only measures 23 inches in the young and 33 inches in adults. 
In summer plumage the white spots on the scapulars are larger 
in the White-billed species, whilst those on the flanks and upper 
tail-coverts are smaller than in the allied species. But the 
most important distinction is to be found in the number of white 
streaks in front of the throat and on each side of the neck. 
Of the former there are about half-a-dozen in C. adamsi, and 
about a dozen in C. glacialis, whilst of the latter there are about 
ten in C. adamsi, and about eighteen in C. glactalis. 
It is extremely probable that other British-killed examples of 
the White-billed Diver may exist in collections. Any information 
on the subject would be of great value to the writer, and would 
be well worth recording in the pages of ‘The Zoologist.’ 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
Important Additions to the National Collection of Birds.— 
Ornithologists will be glad to hear that the magnificent collection of 
Neotropical birds belonging to Messrs. Salvin and Godman has recently 
become national property by presentation. This collection is one of the 
most famous in the world, and comprises not only all the specimens 
obtained by Mr. Osbert Salvin and Mr. F. Du Cane Godman during their 
travels in Central America, but also all those received by them from their 
numerous collectors in different parts of Southern America. This is indeed 
a noble gift, and, with the recent acquisition of the Sclater collection, renders 
the series of American birds im the British Museum undoubtedly the finest 
in the world. The number of specimens in the Salvin-Godman collection 
is about 23,000; those in the Sclater collection about 9000 more. 
The Zoological Record.—At a recent meeting of the Council of the 
Zoological Record Association, Prof. Jeffrey Bell was elected Editor in 
succession to the late Mr. E. C. Rye. 
MAMMALIA. 
Polecats in Cornwall.—Polecats, no doubt, are rapidly disappearing 
from the British Isles, but I was surprised to read Mr. Cornish’s note 
(p. 107), to the effect that he had only met with one specimen in West 
