CORVID.E. 85 



THE COMMON NUTCRACKER. Nucifraga caryocatactes. 

 It is only as a rare visitor that this bird is known in Bri- 

 tain, and our acquaintance with its habits is very limited. 

 It is gregarious, frequenting wooded alpine regions, and 

 reported as common in the mountain-forests of Norway and 

 Sweden and parts of Germany, and is also found abun- 

 dantly in Eussia and Northern Asia. In some of its habits 

 it resembles the Jay, and in others it approximates to the 

 Woodpeckers. It feeds on seeds of the pine, on berries 

 and nuts, also on insects and their larvae, and sometimes 

 devours the eggs and young of birds. Holes of decayed 

 trees are selected for nidification, and the eggs, five or six 

 in number, are of a yellowish-grey colour with a few spots 

 of bright grey-brown. 



THE EUROPEAN JAY. Garrulns glandarim. This beau- 

 tiful bird, whose discordant notes may be heard resounding 

 through the woods, builds on trees, but not near their sum- 

 mits as do the Crow and Magpie. Its nest is constructed 

 externally of sticks, and lined internally with roots. The 

 eggs, from four to six in number, are as unobtrusive in 

 their appearance as any with which we are acquainted, being 

 of a pale-green colour, thickly speckled with pale-brown. 



The partiality of the Jay for peas and ripe cherries often 



