NOTES AND QUERIES. 479 
variation not dependent on age or change of coat. In some large trees on 
the lawn of the house near where the above occurrence took place, there 
was, one summer, a nest of young Squirrels with very light-coloured tails— 
nearly white, in fact. I often saw them about the place after they were 
full-grown, when they had a very striking appearance.— Onrver V. APLIN 
Great Bourton, Oxon). 
The Beaver in Norway.—In Christiania, on October 22nd, I had the 
melancholy pleasure of examining, in the flesh, an adult male Beaver, 
which Prof. R. Collett kindly took me to see in the University Museum. 
It had been shot on the 14th at the principal Beaver colony in the South 
of Norway. Prof. Collett informed me that it measured 1 métre 20 mm. 
in total length (about 3 ft. 4-1 in.); the tail 251 mm. (about 10:2 in.) ; 
weight, just 18 kilos (about 39 1bs. 10 oz.). The skull was entirely 
smashed by a shot at very close quarters, so it could not be made into a 
skeleton, but the skin was to be mounted for the Museum, and the loose 
bones preserved.—A. H. Cocxs (Great Marlow, Bucks). 
Attempted Acclimatisation of the Dormouse in Ireland.—I have 
to-day (November 13th) set free six healthy Dormive which I received from 
London. They have been released in a thicket near some hazel-bushes. 
The Dormouse is not an Irish quadruped, and it may be as well to place 
on record an indication of what is, so far as I am aware, the first “centre 
of introduction” in Ireland.—R. M. Barrinaton (Fassaroe, Bray, County 
Wicklow). 
BIRDS. 
Occurrence of the Desert Wheatear in Yorkshire. — Through the 
kindness of Mr. P. W. Lawton, I received what purported to be “a light 
variety of the Wheatear,” shot between the villages of Easington and 
Kilnsea, on the Holderness coast, on October 17th last. A glance at the 
specimen, however, at once suggested a rarity, and on examination a sus- 
picion that it was Savicola deserti, Temminck. This surmise as to the 
species has been confirmed by Prof. Newton and Mr. H. E. Dresser, who 
kindly examined and compared the bird, which, being tailless, rendered 
certainty in identification a matter of some difficulty. The specimen is a 
female, though it was too much shattered to prove it to be such by dissection ; 
it is now in my possession, and was exhibited by Mr. Dresser at the meeting 
of the Zoological Society on the 17th ult. It is the first English specimen ; 
the second British—one having been shot in Clackmannanshire on November 
26th, 1880 ; and, I believe, the fourth occurrence of the species in Western 
Europe—two having been obtained on Heligoland. This bird appears to be 
an accidental visitant to countries north of the Mediterranean, its true 
home being the desert regions of Northern and North-eastern Africa, 
extending eastwards through Persia to North-west India. — Wm. Eacur 
Crarge (Leeds). 
