Eygs of the Nutcracker and Parrot -billed Cross-bill. lf)9 



agree with the writer of tliat review in the earnest tone with 

 which he deprecates the too easy admission into cabinets of 

 unauthenticated specimens. One or two careless admissions of 

 spurious eggs deservedly destroy the reputation of a whole col- 

 lection. Still, while disclaiming any desire to look upon " my 

 own geese as swans/' I must confess to having assigned a place 

 in my cabinet to one species which the revaewer considers as 

 awaiting the exertions of the Alpine Club to bring it to England 

 for the first time — the Nutcracker. I am not aware that any 

 other collector in this country pretends to its possession, and 

 therefore a note of the eggs, and the manner in which I became 

 possessed of them, may not be out of place in ' The Ibis.' 



In the year 1844, which I spent in Switzerland and Savoy, 

 while yet a very young ornithologist, I became acquainted with a 

 shepherd and chasseur in the valley of Sixt, with whom I used 

 to make excursions. I was then ignorant of the rarity of the 

 Nutcracker's eggs, though I obtained two specimens of the bird, 

 w^hich I still possess. In the year 1854 I revisited the valley 

 in the course of a walking tour, and hunted up my old friend, 

 who rejoiced in the very common cognomen of Balmat. In 

 conversation I asked him whether he ever collected any eggs ; 

 he said No, but afterwards told me he had taken a nest of the 

 ' Casse-noix ' in the spring, and had the eggs at home. It ap- 

 peared that, being in the pine-forest in the month of March (as 

 far as he could recollect, the second or third week, before the 

 snow was off the ground), he had discovered the nest of a Nut- 

 cracker on one of the lower branches of a pine, well sheltered by 

 another branch closely covering it, and containing four eggs. 

 The tree he described as growing very close to the side of a pre- 

 cipice, in descending which he had first descried it. The four 

 eggs were strung up in his kitchen. As he had never taken a Nut- 

 cracker's nest before, he would part with only three of them, on 

 which, however, he set no veiy great value, as he asked but five 

 francs for the lot. One of these I unfortunately smashed a few days 

 afterwards, the other two I still possess. They measure 1 '27 inch 

 in length, '9 inch in breadth, and are of a dun colour, without the 

 greenish hue of the Magpie's, and are thickly covered at the 

 larger end with large brown blotches, which become very sparse 



VOL. II. N 



