( 134) 



meagre substitutes for the properly labelled examples, which every musemn 

 official should try to acquire iu their ])laces iu time, la fact, it is most important 

 that collectors should add either on the labels or in a diary, besides the exact 

 localities, dates, sexes, and colours of bare parts, which are generally seen on 

 proper labels, whether the birds were breeding or appeared in flocks as migrants, 

 whether they frequented the pine- or fir-woods, the beech-woods or the parks and 

 gardens, etc., or that they should publish such observations as they liad the 

 fortunate opportunity to make. 



I have hitherto only spoken of two forms, namely, the thick-billed form, the 

 lY. cari/ocatactes (L.), afterwards renamed N. hrachjrhjnrhoi by Brehm, and the 

 Blender-billed, 3'. macrorhijnchos of Brehm. This is not far wrong indeed, but in 

 1889 Dr. Eeichenow called attention to the fact that the majority of specimens 

 from Scandinavia, Lapplaud, and East Prussia were paler on the back and head 

 than those from the Central European Jlountains, and he therefore named the 

 latter .V. relictu. Dr. lleicheuow also said that the Alpine form had smaller white 

 spots on the back, biit I iind that this is not generally the case, but merely an 

 individual character. Also the paler coloration varies a good deal, but northern 

 specimens are always rather pale above, while those from Switzerland and from 

 the Carpathian Mountains are very seldom so pale. It is therefore advisable ta 

 keep the latter apart under Reicheuow"s name S. i-dicta, though the form is only 

 recognisable if a good series is compared, and not always constant, and though the 

 " nomen nudum " X. alpestris of C. L. Brehm might have been accepted for it, to 

 simplify the already encumbered synonymic list. The two other forms are mostly 

 very constant. 1 have not yet seen an intermediate one from Europe, as far as the 

 size of the beak goes ; but occasionally the white tips on the tail vary, and some 

 Asiatic examples vary also very much in the size of the beaks. The alleged 

 difference in the size of the white spots above and below, which I have not yet 

 mentioned, is very variable. 



As I said before, the Japanese form of uut-cracker has been considered by 

 Seebohm to be the same as the Eurojiean thick-billed form. Stejneger, however 

 (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 1888, pp. 425-432), declares that the Japanese birds belong 

 to the slender-billed form. The author also differs from Seebohm in considering 

 that the slender- and stout-billed forms are eastern and western, and cannot be 

 called " arctic " and " temperate." Though in this latter statement Stejneger is 

 undoubtedly right, he is exactly as wrong as Seebohm, who unites the Japanese 

 form with the European form, if he unites it with the Siberian bird. It is true that 

 Stejneger's view is more sensible with regard to the distribution of these birds, and 

 that he already mentioned the possibility of somebody separating the Jajianese form 

 in fnture as a further subspecies. This latter course is undoubtedly the only right 

 one. The Japanese nut-crackers have the beaks midway between those of the two 

 other forms, thougli often more resembling those of tlie thick bills. In all other 

 characters, however, except the form of the bill, the Japanese form is closest to the 

 Siberian form : the white tips to the rectrices are large ; the upper tail-coverts, 

 which are mostly uniform in iV. earyocatactes caryocatactcs and nearly always finely 

 spotted with white in iV. c. macrorhynchos, are mostly finely spotted with white in 



N. c. japonicus subsp. nov., 



as 1 name the Japanese form. The spots below are very large iu N. c. japonicus, 

 and mostly with a creamy tinge, the brown colour above very dark. 



