NUTCRACKER. 287 



That the nutcracker is a regular summer migrant to 

 the middle and north of Scandinavia, I believe, although 

 it appears in much greater numbers in some years than 

 others. The bird is also well known in Lapland, and Finland, 

 and yet strange to say, we very rarely see them, and never, 

 I may say, except in the autumn, and the breeding habits 

 of the bird appear to be involved in an impenetrable mystery. 

 I believe no one yet has been able properly to authenticate 

 the egg (certainly not in the north), and although I have 

 had three full sets of eggs through my hands, which I have 

 every possible reason to believe were the genuine eggs of 

 this bird, yet as I did not take them myself, or see the 

 old bird or the nest in situ, I could not authenticate them. 

 In 1860, I procured two sets of eggs, all of which, but one, 

 I sent to England, and one of these eggs was laid before 

 the Zoological Society by Mr. A. Newton, who remarked 

 that of the examples then exhibited by him, my egg was 

 the one in which he was most inclined to believe. Both 

 sets were taken in South Wermland, a little south of where 

 I live. In both cases the nest was in a small fir, in one 

 instance on a large island ; the full number of eggs in each 

 was four. I procured one of the nests, which was not unlike 

 that of the common jay, but very different from Mr. 

 Newton's description of the nest of the nutcracker, which 

 he received in 1861, from the island of Bornholm, in the 

 Baltic, with young birds. This latter nest was taken on 

 the 30th May, and the young birds had left it perhaps eight 

 days. My eggs were taken fresh in May, and the boy who 

 took them, and in whom I can place confidence, described 

 the bird as the nutcracker. Moreover, Dr. Hammagren 

 of Carlstad, who, for some time, resided in Dalsland, a 

 province south of this, and a very little way from where I 

 received my eggs, says that in the north of that province, 

 in a tract called Hassel Skog (on account of the number of 

 nuts which grow there) the nutcracker is not uncommon 

 in the summer. The egg which I saved for my own 

 cabinet is scarcely so large as that of the jay, but thicker 

 and blunter. Very glossy. Ground colour green, strewed 



