NUTCRACKER. 333 



1821, 1822, 1836, 1844, 1847 and 1868— the year 1844 

 being especially remarkable in this respect ; but little or 

 nothing had been ascertained in regard to its breeding- 

 habits or its home, for nearly all of those that came into 

 the hands of Ornithologists were evidently stragglers, and 

 were perhaps wanderers from afar. Great curiosity was 

 therefore felt for the discovery of its true haunts and 

 habits, and even now, as will immediately appear, that 

 curiosity cannot said to be satisfied, though a laborious 

 monograph * of the species, recently published, clears up 

 much that had been hitherto obscure, by compendiously 

 bringing together nearly all the information that could be 

 obtained on the subject, and has been freely laid under 

 contribution in the following pages. 



During the breeding-season the Nutcracker undoubtedly 

 prefers retired forests in which conifers prevail, if they do 

 not grow alone, and as in Central and Southern Europe 

 such forests only exist in mountainous districts, the belief 

 arose that mountainous districts were needed to afford the 

 species a fitting abode. But this is not wholly true, and 

 it will be found as much at home in the woods of Southern 

 Scandinavia — in Dalsland and Bornholm, where there are 

 no hills of great height — as in those which clothe the 

 rugged sides of the Alps or other notable ranges. But the 

 particular spots which it chooses for the business of propaga- 

 tion are of comparatively small extent, though they occur 

 discontinuously over a great part of Europe, and we may 

 hence conclude that, notwithstanding the success of recent 

 researches, there is yet much more to be learnt of the Nut- 

 cracker's economy. The older accounts of its mode of 

 nidification have proved to be mere suppositions and very 

 wide of the mark. Among them, however, there is only 



* 'Der Tannenheher {Nucifrafja carvocatactes.) Ein monographischer Versuch 

 von Victor Ritter von Tscbusi-Schmidhofen.' 4to, Dresden [1874]. HerrVogel's 

 able paper, "Die Fortpflanzung des Tannenhahers in Jura Solothurns" in the 

 'Bericlit' of the Natural History Society of St. Gall for 1871-72 (p. 156) 

 contains much of interest. The excellent account of this species in Mr. Dresser's 

 'Birds of Europe' includes copious extracts from both these works as well as 

 others of hardly less imijortance. 



