584 NUCIFRAGA CARYOCATACTES. 



lower parts larger. The lower tail-coverts and the tips of the 

 tail-feathers are white, the lateral feathers having most, and the 

 central least, of that colour. 



Length to end of tail 12i inches; wing from flexure Ti ; 

 tail 5 ; bill along the ridge If. 



Montagu states that "it is a rare species in England ; two 

 instances only on record : one shot in Flintshire, the other in 

 Kent." Mr. Selby adds another, an individual having been 

 seen by Captain Robert Mitford, in Nether witton Wood, in 

 Northumberland, in the autumn of 1819. There is a speci- 

 men in the Museum of the University of Edinburgh, said to 

 have been shot in Scotland ; another in that of Mr. Arbuthnot 

 at Peterhead ; and the individual from which I have taken 

 the above description belongs to Mr. Th. Henderson, Coates' 

 Crescent, Edinburgh. 



It is said by authors to be common in many parts of the 

 Continent, inhabiting the forests, and feeding on larvae, insects, 

 fruits, and occasionally eggs, and even young birds. Brisson 

 states that it occurs in Austria, occasionally appears in various 

 districts of Germany, and in 1753 was seen in very great num- 

 bers in France. M. Valmont-Bomare informs us that it pre- 

 fers living in the pine-forests of mountainous regions, and feeds 

 chiefly on fir-seeds and nuts. Nothing, he says, is more curious 

 than to see it eating one of the latter. Having taken it from 

 its store in the hole of a tree, it fixes it in a fissure, splits it 

 open with a blow of its bill, and then extracts the kernel. 

 Crows, Jays, and some Titmice, it may be observed, act in the 

 same manner. 



