NUTHATCH 647 
snows are melted, and this fact coupled with that of its becoming, like 
a JAY, silent in the breeding-season, when at other times it is rather 
noisy than not, will account for the mystery which so long en- 
wrapped its domestic arrangements; but, now that the secret has 
been divulged, nests and eggs have been found without much diffi- 
culty in various parts of Europe, and contrary to what was for 
many years believed, the nest seems to be invariably built on the 
bough of a tree, some 20 feet from the ground, and is a comparatively 
large structure of sticks lined with grass. The eggs are of a very 
pale bluish-green, sometimes nearly spotless, but usually more or less 
freckled with pale olive or ash-colour. The chief food of the Nut- 
cracker, though it at times searches for insects on the ground, 
appears to be the seeds of fir-trees, which it extracts as it holds the 
cones in its foot, and it has been questioned whether the bird has 
the faculty of cracking nuts—properly so called—with its bill, 
though that can be used with much force and, at least in confine- 
ment, with no little ingenuity. Considerable difference has been 
observed in the form and size of the bill of examples of this species, 
but as in the case of the Huta (page 437) this is now supposed to 
depend on the sex—that of the cock being stout and short, while 
in the hen it is long and thin. The bird is about the size of a Jay, 
and of a dark sooty-brown colour spangled with white, nearly each 
body-feather ending in a tear-shaped patch of that colour. Beside 
the European species, which also extends into Northern or Central 
Asia, three others, very nearly akin to it, have been described from 
the Himalayas. Of their American cousin, Clark’s Crow, as it is 
ealled (Picicorvus columbianus), inhabiting only the western slopes of 
the Rocky Mountains, and discovered during the famous expedition 
of Lewis and Clark to the mouth of the Columbia River in 1804-6, 
an excellent account has been given by Dr. Coues (Jlis, 1872, pp. 
52-59). 
The old supposition that the Nut-crackers had any affinity to 
the Picide (WOODPECKER) or were intermediate in position between 
them and the Corvidx (CROW) is now known to be wholly erroneous, 
for they undoubtedly belong to the latter Family. 
NUTHATCH, in older English Nurwack, and locally Nut- 
JOBBER, from its habit of hacking or chipping nuts, which it 
cleverly fixes, as though in a vice, in a chink or crevice of the 
bark of a tree, and then hammers them with the sharp point of 
its bill till the shell is broken. This bird was long thought to be 
the Sitta europea of Linneus ; but that is now admitted to be the 
northern form, with the lower parts white, and its buff-breasted 
representative in central, southern, and western Europe, including 
England, is known as Sitta cxsia. It is not found in Ireland, and 
in Scotland its appearance is merely accidental. Without being 
