98 BIRDS OF CHESHIRE. 
to Cheshire. About the year 1846 one was taken near 
Holmes Chapel; 1 and Brockholes, writing in 1874, says: 
— ‘Some years ago I met with a flock of these birds in 
a field at Leasowe.2 On October 4th, 1887, a Chough 
was knocked down with a whip by a man at Compstall, 
and was taken to W. H. Gillett, a Stockport taxidermist, 
who kept it alive for several days. The bird, which 
showed no signs of having been in confinement, is now 
in the Vernon Museum, Stockport. 
NUTCRACKER. 
NUCIFRAGA CARYOCATACTES (Linnzus). 
This rare visitor from the continent of Europe has 
only been obtained once in Cheshire. In 1860 a male 
was shot at Vale Royal, Delamere, and was preserved 
by the late William Thompson of Chester. Mr. A. O. 
Walker purchased the specimen, and presented it to 
the Grosvenor Museum. 
JAY. 
GARRULUS GLANDARIUS (Linnzus). 
In spite of relentless persecution by the game- 
preserver, the Jay is common in the wooded portions 
of the Plain. Its harsh note is a familiar sound in all 
the parks and the adjacent coverts, for the bird is 
more frequently heard than seen. Nowhere is it so 
plentiful as in Delamere Forest, where we have seen ~ 
twenty birds hanging in a keeper’s ‘museum’; and 
Dr. Dobie records that in October 1893 over fifty were 
1 T. W. Barlow, Zoologist, ser. 1. vol. iv. p. 1501. 
2 Brockholes, op. cit. p. 8. 3 Dobie, op. cit. p. 303. 
