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hamata, minor, arquata, and alpestris. Of these arquata and alpestris are " nomina 

 nnda"' without any nse, hamntn and minor seem to refer to somewhat aberrant 

 specimens of the slender-billed form, jilat>jrli>jnil>0!< is evidently a thick-billed bird. 

 Most of these are named from single birds, evidently shot on mignitiou or when 

 astray, so that even their home is quite uncertain. With regard to the proper home 

 of X. bracki/rhi/nchos and X. macrorhynchos, C. L. Brehm was also quite uncertain, 

 but his descriptions are so clear that we cannot be in doubt about the meaning of 

 his names. In spite of Brehm's puzzhug niultiplication of forms iu later years, there 

 were always clear-headed ornithologists who had material enough to recognise the 

 differences between the two forms first separated in 1823. In 1845 Monsieur de 

 Selys LoDgchamps separated two forms, but he evidently did not have the two 

 before him, his alleged differences being individual aberrations. 



In the same year (ls45) Mr. R. Fisher figured and described botli forms very 

 well in the Zoologist, but it mnst be admitted that nothing like a series from 

 breeding-places was known at the time. 



The year to bring them to the front once more, and eHectually, was iss;. In 

 that year Professor Rudolf Blasius wrote an excellent monograph on the European 

 forms of Xucifraga in the Orn/s. The great immigration into Euroi)e of the 

 slender-billed form in 1885 evidently gave rise to this valuable work. In the same 

 year appeared my article on the " Birds of East Prussia " {MitfJieilungcyi (les 

 Ornitliologifichi'ii Yereins in Wien), in which I very distinctly distinguished between 

 " X. canjocata.ctt's brachjrlii/ncha," the resident form breeding in East Prussia, and 

 " X. c. raacrorht/ncha,'^ the Siberian form, occurring in East Prussia and other parts 

 of Germany as a migrant from autumn to spring. In my article on X. c. bracliy- 

 rhi/nrka, however, is a mistake, the home of X. rdryocotactes macrorhijncha being 

 said to be the Alps. The somewhat contradictory remark under "j;V. c. hrachy- 

 rhyncha,'^ however, points to its being a lapsus calami. IMy differentiation between 

 the two forms is also repeated in Ibis, 1802, pp. 309, 370. I collected a large series 

 in East Prussia in the breeding-places, where I also found nests and eggs, and all 

 the sjjecimens from No. 50 to No. 00 mentioned on pp. 480-483 in drnix, Vol. 11., 

 were shot and skinned by me, though no mention of it is made. 



Both Professor Blasius' work and my remarks on the nut-crackers were imfortu- 

 nately burdened with most unnecessary synonyms. We both considered Brehm's 

 names brachyrhynchos and macror/n/nchos (meaning short-billed and long-billed) not 

 very approjiriate. because it is the stoutness and slenderness rather than their short- 

 ness and length that distinguishes them, and Professor Blasius substituted and used for 

 them the more fitting terms jmchyrhynchiis and leptorhynchus, meaning stout-billed 

 and thin-billed. I suggested mildly that the names crassirostrix and fenuiiostris 

 were more appropriate ; but I did not (even worse I) use them in the headings of 

 my articles, nor at any time afterwards. It is needless to say that neither of our 

 names can be used. 



Since 1887 it may be said that German ornithologists generally liave recog- 

 nised the two forms, and in English works on ornitliology I find two notes — that is, 

 one of Seebohm in fbis, 1888, pj). 230-241, and one in his Birds of 4116 Japanese 

 Empire, p. 99. Scebohm there declares that there is, in his opinion, not a western 

 and an eastern form, but an arctic and a temperate form, and he unites the Japanese 

 form with the European one (the brachyrhynchos of Brehm), while Blasius said it 

 was the same as the Silierian one, i.e. I?rehm's macrorhynchos. Certainly the 

 latter statement is wrong, but it cannot either be united with the Enropean form, 



