NOTES AND QUERIES. 271 



Ducks passed during the morning. On the 22nd there was a great rush of 

 Larks all day, and a few Hooded Crows. Ou the 23rd I saw a Great 

 Northern Diver, Colymbus tjlacialis, outside Salt Scar, but could not get 

 within a hundred yards of it. In the early part of November, Mr. A. E. 

 Pease, M.P., killed a fenmle Goosander, Mergus merganser, in a small 

 runner near Guisbro', and about the middle of the month Mr. R. F. Chilton 

 shot a large female Great Northern Diver at the Tees-mouth. Mr. Chilton 

 informed me that it weighed close upon twelve pounds, which I can quite 

 believe, judging from the size of the bird. There has evidently been a flight 

 of Shore Larks, Alauda alpestris, ou the coast. Twelve or fifteen were 

 killed during the first week in December; on the 10th two more were shot 

 ou Coatham sands, and on the 11th Mr. Emerson shot three at the same 

 place. I examined ten or a dozen examples, and found all of them to be 

 young birds. — T. H. Nelson (North Bondgate, Bishop Auckland). 



Food of the Smew. — It is generally admitted that all the Mergansers 

 subsist chiefly on hsh, and such has hitherto been the writer's experience. 

 Smews, in particular, almost always contain remains of small fishes, less 

 frequently aquatic insects; and though the diving ducks often yield on 

 dissection no further results than a few small pebbles, the Smews are rarely 

 obtained when fasting. On a recent occasion a Smew proved to have 

 eighteen minnows in its gullet, while the stomach contained the remains of 

 others. It may therefore be worth while to record that a Smew of the 

 year, purchased in Leadenhall ou March 25th, contained no remains of 

 animal food, but the stomach held a small quantity of digested vegetable 

 matter. A\\ adult opened a month earlier contained a small eel, which was 

 quite intact. — H. A. Macpherson. 



The Ancestry of Birds. — If birds are developed from amphibians or 

 pre-amphibians, and if Prof. Huxley is right, as I believe he is, in supposing 

 that the connection of mammals with amphibians is neither through reptiles 

 nor birds, we come to this: that amphibians or pre-amphibians have 

 furnished the common stem whence reptiles, birds, and mammals have 

 diverged. In that case there is an end of that group, " Sauropsida," which 

 the birds are alleged by Prof. Parker to "culminate." But, further, 

 amphibians are certainly more closely allied to reptiles than to either birds 

 or mammals. Cuvier's system may therefore be justly reverted to, and the 

 Amphibia or Batrachia be considered as the lowest division of the Reptilia, 

 which I do not for one moment doubt is the true classification. — Prof. 

 Cleland in ' Nature.' 



REPTILES. 



Colour and Size of Adders.— Is there any truth in the assertion, 

 which I have often heard, that the colour of Adders depends upon the kind 

 of soil ou which they hve? I am disinclined to accept this theory, as 



