646 NUN NUTCRACKER 



NULLIPENNES, Lesson's name in 1831 (Tr. d'Orn. p. 11) for 

 a group of birds to consist of the genus Apteryx (Kiwi) ; but lately 

 applied in error (Century Dictionary, sub wee) to the PENGUINS. 



NUN (printed "Non" in Merrett's Pinax, p. 183), the adult 

 male SMEW, from his delicate white and black plumage, and also 

 said to be a local name of the Blue Titmouse, Parus cteruleus, 

 according to Charleton (Onomast. p. 90), from its banded head ; but 

 the French Nonnette and the German Nonnenmeise are names of the 

 Marsh-Titmouse, P. palustris. 



NUTCRACKER, the name given in 1758 by Edwards (Glean- 

 ings, i. p. 63, pi. 240) to a bird which had hitherto none in English, 

 though described in 1544 by Turner, who, meeting with it in the 

 Rhaetic Alps, where it was called " Nousbrecher " (hodie "Nuss- 

 brecher"), translated that word into Latin as Nudfraga. In 1555 

 Gesner figured it and conferred upon it another designation, 

 Caryocatactes. Willughby and Ray obtained it on the road from 

 Vienna to Venice as they crossed what must have been the Som- 

 merring Pass, 26th September 1663; and it has a wide range in 

 the northern parts of the Palaearctic area, chiefly keeping to sub- 

 alpine or subarctic pine-forests, and apparently nowhere numerous, 

 though roving bands of seventy or one hundred have occasionally 

 been observed in autumn, at which season it can be often seen in 

 suitable localities in several European countries. It is the Corvus 

 caryocatactes of Linnaeus, the Nudfraga caryocatactes of modern orni- 

 thology. 1 The first known to have occurred in Britain was, according 

 to Pennant, shot at Mostyn in Flintshire, 5th October 1753, while 

 about fifteen more examples have since been procured, and others 

 seen, in this island. For many years nothing was known of this 

 bird during the breeding-season, when it seemed to disappear from 

 sight, and this notwithstanding the interest taken in the search for 

 its nest and eggs. It is now pretty clear that the discovery was 

 due to the Abbe Caire of Sanieres in the Lower Alps, but though he 

 obtained an egg in 1846, he was unable to produce proof of the fact, 

 and the truth was not ascertained until some sixteen years later by 

 the Danish oologists HH. Fischer and Erichsen, who after much 

 labour found and took nests and eggs in the island of Bornholm. 2 

 The Nutcracker breeds very early in the year, long before the 



1 A monograph of the species by the Ritter Victor von Tschusi-Schmid- 

 hoffen was printed at Dresden in 1874 with the title of Der Tannenheher, one of 

 its many German names. 



2 Many other claimants appeared in the meanwhile without making good 

 their pretensions. The story of the discovery is told with some details in 

 Yarrell's British Birds (ed. 4, ii. pp. 332-337). The egg of the Nutcracker seems 

 to have been first figured by Badeker (Journ. filr Om. 1856, pi. i. fig. 1), but the 

 first specimen with an undeniable history, being from Bornholm as above stated, 

 in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society (1867, pi. xv. fig. 2). 



