1888.] PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 425 



REVIEW OF JAPANESE BIRDS. 



VIII.— THE NUTCRACKER (NUCIFBAGA CABYOCATACTES MACBOBHYN- 



CHOS). 



BY LEONHARD STEJNEGER. 



Having recently been asked by Victor Ritter von Tschusi-Schmid- 

 k often to express au opiniou in regard to the races of Nucifraga caryo- 

 catactes, I shall not attempt a full analysis of the whole question, but 

 only review the material in my hands, as it may throw some light on 

 the subject. 



Brehm was the first to clearly define the two races of Nutcrackers, 

 which most ornithologists who have studied the question are now will- 

 ing to admit. He was, however, unable to assign to them definite and 

 distinct habitats, and partly because the shape of the bill, which is the 

 principal characteristic of the two races, is in itself subject to great in- 

 dividual variation as well as to considerable changes on account of wear 

 and tear, partly on account of the unreasonable prejudice of ornitholo- 

 gists concerning the forms described by Brehm, the races or subspecies 

 in question were either misunderstood or entirely ignored for more than 

 half a century. When, in 1872, I examined aud measured a number of 

 Nutcrackers in the museums of Bergen and Christiauia for the mono- 

 graph of von Tschusi-Schmidhoffen,* I labored under the same impres- 

 sion, viz, that because both thick-billed and slender-billed specimens 

 occurred in Norway there could not well be any racial difference. But 

 after the elaborate monograph of Dr. Rudolf Blasius,t in which he most 

 convincingly demonstrates that the resident bird of Europe is the thick- 

 billed form, while the slender-billed individuals belong to the numerous 

 flocks which, with short and irregular intervals, invade the western 

 countries from the forest region of Siberia, there is no excuse for con- 

 founding them any more. 



Before proceeding any further it will now be necessary to ascertain 

 the correct names of the two forms. While expressing my great 

 appreciation of Dr. R. Blasius's painstaking work, I can not but most 

 severely condemn that he should think it necessary to reject the old 

 names for the trifling reason that they are unsuitable, and substitute 

 new terras in direct violation of the law of priority recognized both by 

 the code of the American Ornithologists' Union and by the Stricklandian 

 code. The new names are imposed in order to avoid misunderstand- 

 ings and confusions, but they have only made confusion more con- 



* Der Tauiieuheker {Nuchfraga caryocatactex). Dresden. L873, p. 4. 

 tDer Wanderzng der Tauueuheher, etc., Ornis, n, 188(3, pp. 437-550, -f- pi. i-iii (also 

 extr. paged 1-114). 



