46 
NOTES AND NEWS. 
The Editor has much pleasure in announcing that Prof. Trail, the past 
Editor of this Journal, has most kindly offered to edit the Botanical matter 
contributed to the " Scottish Naturalist." This valued assistance the Editor 
has gladly accepted and begs to fully acknowledge the obligation. 
To the Studies from the Museum of Zoology in University College, Dundee, 
Professor D'Arcy Thompson has contributed a valuable and interesting article 
On the Systematic Position of Hesiperornis, In this he tells us that he has for 
some years considered Prof. Marsh's group of Odontornithes, or Toothless 
Birds, as an unreal and illusory one, and that it is as unreasonable to unite 
them, on account of the persistence of their teeth, as to group together the 
"toothless Mammals. Regarding Hesperornis, he considers that from purely 
osteological characters, there is a wide difference between it and any of the 
Ratitse — the Ostriches, Cassowaries, Emeus — with which it has hitherto been 
associated, but that its close resemblance to Divers and Grebes is clear and 
patent. From these characters Hesperornis is a Diver of great size and 
prodigious swimming power, and possessed of anatomical resemblances almost 
amounting to identity with existing Colymbidce or Divers — resemblances as 
great as between Stringops and other Parrots, and much greater than between 
the Dodo and ordinary pigeons. 
"The Auk " (October, 1S90, p. 413), informs us that "the real character of 
the European House-Sparrow " is at last attracting the attention of legislators. 
The State of Massachusetts Legislature, after an extended discussion, has 
passed an Act entitled "An Act providing for the Extermination of the English 
Sparrow in the Commonwealth." The bird had already been declared an out- 
law in several States, and the offering of bounties for its wholesale destruction 
has been agitated for in others. 
In " The Ibis " for October last (p. 411), Dr. Giinther describes and figures 
the foot of the young of the Wryneck {Tynx torqiiilla). In the nestling the 
skin of the heel is greatly thickened, forming a prominent pad studded with 
conical tubercles. The function of this structure is to enable the chick to 
move about the nest-hole, to do which it does not use the toes, but pushes it- 
self forward by means of the rough surface of the heel-pad. Dr. Gunther 
remarks that it would be interesting to ascertain if a similar structure is to be 
found in nestling Woodpeckers of the same age— two days. 
Two new birds have recently been added to the British Avifauna. Mr. 
James Backhouse in " The Naturalist'' (i8go, p. 258), recorded the occur- 
rence near Scarborough, on the 23rd of October, 18S9, of the Asiatic Turtle 
