544 General Notes. 
others have not yet reached that island. Eight forms occur only 
in Asia Minor and its coast islands. 
M. Dollo attacks the conclusion of Dr. Baur that the Athece 
(Sphargis, ete.,) are descended from the Thecophora. He argues 
that if the carapace of the Athecz is formed, as maintained by Dr. 
Batır, by delamination into a mosaic of the carapace of a Thecopho- 
rous ancestor, fontanelles ought to exist as in the other Chelonians, 
which is not the case. Moreover, the oldest genera of 
were without dorsal armor. The fact that the plastron of Sphargis 
is more reduced than that of the other Chelonians goes indeed to 
show that the Thecophora cannot be descended from the Athece, 
but it does not indicate the reverse of this. Dr. Trouessart, 
from various considerations, inclines to the belief that the two 
groups have descended from a common ancestor by diverging paths. 
Brrps.—George F. Atkinson gives a preliminary catalogue of 
the Birds of North Carolina, consisting of a list with notes of 255 
species and sub-species already observed and an appendix enume- 
rating eighty-one more which may reasonably be expected to occur. 
In the prefatory account of previous work on the avifauna of the 
State no mention is made of the labor of Coues and Yarrow at 
Fort Macon. 
According to Mr. A. C. Smith, the iathor of a recently 
issued work upon “The Birds of Wiltshire ” (Eng.), the 
Bustard, which in English popular opinion is always more asso- 
ciated with the Wiltshire Downs or Salis bury Plain than with 
any other part of the country, became extinct there about the 
year 182). There seems, in fact, to be no printed account of its 
occurrence in Wiltshire after that of Montagu in 1813. The 
Bustard was not extirpated i in Suffolk until 1832, nor Norfolk until 
1838. 
LL-H. Ge saat gives in “The Zoologist” a list of — 
reported occurrences of Sterna oon in Great Britain, the last m 
1880. Itis readily identified by its red beak. 
The land-birds of Fernando Naroni according to H. N. Rid- 
ley, comprise a Dove, a Tyrant, and a Vireo, yet the group of 
islands is but 194 miles east of Cape San Roque. 
MAMMALIA—It seems, from Mr. Harting’s notes in “ The 
Zoho that of late years the European mole has extended its 
range in Great Britain. Writing in 1874, Bell observes that ne 
mole is not found in the northern extremity of Scotland, por in t = 
islands of Orkney and Zetland.” Alston, writing in 1880, remar 
that it was at that date well known in Sutherland and Caithness 
Though absent from the island, it is common in Anglesea an 1 
Apar on the opposite coas odaat: Albino moles are not uncommon. 
only herds of wild white cattle now existing in 
Britain are at the following places: commas Park, near Uttoxeter, 
