OCCASIONAL NOTES. 69 



is the large nasal chamber, lying above and internal to the palatine bone, 

 and in free communication with the buccal cavity. The mucous membrane 

 lining the nasal chamber has the same structure and the same nerve-supply 

 as in other aquatic birds. The nasal region of the Cormorant, and to some 

 exteut also in the Gannet (Sula), thus differs chiefly from the nasal arrange- 

 ment in other birds — (1). in having a very small external nostril, the passage 

 in this slit-like aperture being almost obliterated ; (2), in having the osseous 

 canal only If to 2 millims. in diameter externally, and scarcely 1£ millim. at 

 its narrowest part ; and (3), in having the nasal chamber in very free com- 

 munication with the mouth. This state of things, it may be presumed, 

 explains the gaping of the bill, in the case of the Cormorant, to obtain air 

 needful to sustain the increased activity of respiration which is produced by 

 the exertion of prolonged flight. — J. C. Ewart, M.D., in the 'Journal of 

 the Linnean Society (Zoolor/yJ,' 1881, p. 455. 



Supposed Occurrence of the Hairy Woodpecker in Oxfordshire. 

 — A short time back I bought of the birdstuffer here a skin of a Wood- 

 pecker, the history of which he gave as follows : — It was shot between 

 Hook Norton and Chipping Norton, in this county, about five years ago. 

 He skinned it in a great hurry, being then engaged in other business, and 

 put it away till he should have time to attend to it. It was forgotten, and 

 remained lost till a month or two ago, when, on turning out some old 

 boxes, he came across it. He thought at the time he skinned it that 

 it was a variety of Dendrocopus major, not being acquainted with the 

 rarer Woodpeckers. As I was not sure of the species myself, I sent 

 the skin to Mr. Harting, who very kindly examined it, — submitting 

 it also to Prof. Newton, — and decided that it was a skin of the Hairy 

 Woodpecker, Dendrocopus rillosus (Linn.), remarking, however, that con- 

 sidering how easily foreign skins are now-a-days obtained, and how 

 easily they may get mixed up if not immediately labelled, he could not help 

 thinking that some mistake had probably been made in the present instance. 

 Of course some doubt must rest on the skin in question being really that of 

 the specimen killed near Chipping Norton ; but the birdstuffer is so certain 

 that it is the identical specimen, and so clear in the history of it, that 

 I hardly like to let it pass unrecorded. He, moreover, states that he 

 never had any foreign specimens of the larger Spotted Woodpeckers in his 

 possession. — Oliver V. Aplin (Banbury, Oxon). 



Abnormal Eggs of Hooded Crow. — In his new edition of Yarrell's 

 ' Birds,' Prof. Newton mentions an instance of a curious variety of the 

 Raven's egg. I possess an egg of the Hooded Crow of a dull brick-dust 

 red colour, and my friend Mr. Harry Leach, who gave it to me with other 

 eggs of the usual type of that bird, has another of this strange variety. 

 They are like pale-coloured Kestrel's or perhaps Hobby's eggs, with darker 



