352 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



plums still hanging on trees ; apricots were still on the trees in 

 the first half of the month. Dec. 3rd. In a garden at Bloxham 

 were two strawberries nearly ripe, peas in full bloom, and rasp- 

 berries in full leaf. Dec. 4. Two Bats on the wing in Banbury 

 at 2 p.m. Dec. 5th. On this and previous morning a Chaffinch 

 sang three or four notes of its song — most unusual. Dec. 16th. 

 A. small bunch of violets were gathered in the garden and two 

 roses from the wall. 



20th. Great flock of Larks on a clover lea. 



28th. Purchased a Great Grey Shrike, shot near the Ceme- 

 tery at Banbury on the 23rd (Zool. 1892, p. 112) ; also examined 

 a female Pied Woodpecker and a male Barred Woodpecker, shot 

 near Han well and Banbury respectively. 



There were great floods in October, November, and Decem- 

 ber. The rainfall in December was 4*14, and 28*06 for the year. 



NOTES AND QUERIES, 



Transportation of Coral by the Gulf Stream.— On the 25th of July 

 last, I was shown by Dr. Kissmeyer, the resident Danish physician, at 

 Westraanshavn, Stromoe, Faroe Islands, a very remarkable example of 

 sea-drift ; namely, a large mass of Brain Coral, weighing about seventeen 

 pounds, which was found attached to a beam of wood that floated into 

 Westmanshavn harbour during the month of March, 1891. I consider 

 the coral to be Diploria cerebriformis (Lam.), a well-known species of the 

 tropical Atlantic, and abundant in the Carribean Sea. An interesting 

 feature of the occurrence lies in the fact that the beam of wood must have 

 remained sufficiently long in tropical waters for the coral polypes to rear- 

 their calcareous structure on it, for the under part of the mass shows 

 plainly the surface of attachment or adherence to the wood. How this 

 large mass resisted the tossing and fretting of the ocean during its long 

 voyage across the Atlantic is wonderful ; but a more striking reflection is, 

 that if the beam of wood had not come ashore on the Faroe Islands it might 

 possibly have been floated on to the shores of Spitsbergen, and there 

 sinking have become entombed in the glacial deposits which are now 

 forming in the bays and fiords of the lands within the Polar area. Owing 

 to the rapidity of elevation which all the laud areas around the Pole 

 appear to be undergoing, and which I have so frequently referred to 

 in this Magazine, the observer of a few generations hence might have 



