ORNITHOLOGY OF OXFORDSHIRE. 219 



among themselves revert in time to the colour of either of their 

 original parents. When this takes place, the appearance of the 

 yellow bands must have been assisted by the natural variability 

 in this direction, which is the characteristic of the Brown bee. 



Seeing that the disposition towards coloration occurs in the 

 brown race and that such disposition occasionally asserts itself, 

 the inclination of the Italian race to assume a darker colour, 

 caused undoubtedly by a tendency towards reversion, cannot be 

 due to its more immediate ancestor, but must be attributed to an 

 older inheritance from the original type, which therefore was 

 probably a uniform dark species. It has to be borne in mind 

 that a complete reversion of every characteristic at the same 

 time can never take place, and that even colour, although it is 

 more likely to reappear in perfection than any other charac- 

 teristic, rarely reverts entirely to its former tone. On account 

 of this it is impossible to give more than a general expression 

 regarding the colour of the original type. Considering, however, 

 that all domesticated bees belong to but one species, which, so 

 far as is known, occurs in two primary geographical races, the 

 Brown and the Egyptian, the tendency towards a dark color- 

 ation in their crosses, under certain conditions, seems to me 

 strongly in favour of my suggestion. 



NOTES on the ORNITHOLOGY of OXFORDSHIRE, 1894-1895. 



By 0. V. Aplin, F.L.S. 



The delay in transcribing these notes, as well as the paucit}' 

 of the notes themselves, arose from my absence from England 

 during the greater part of 1895. Where no other locality is 

 mentioned, the notes refer to the parish of Bloxham. 



January, 1894. 

 The weather in the early part of the month was very severe. 

 The 4th was the most unpleasantly cold day we had experienced 

 since Jan. 18th, 1881. The east wind was painfully cutting, and 

 the dust terrible ; about an inch of snow fell at night. On the 

 night of the 5th the thermometer went down to 6° in a sheltered 

 garden, and must have gone to zero down by the stream. It 

 thawed on the night of the 8th, and the 11th was very mild. 



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