EASTERN AND WES'TERN FORMS OF THE NUTCRACKER. 447 
which are in every particular identical with the Korean examples. 
It would be utterly impossible to tell these birds apart were 
the labels removed, and the uniformity of these eight specimens 
of so variable a species, and from so distant localities, is truly 
astonishing. 
Finally, I have four specimens from Japan, collected by Mr. 
Jouy, but as two of them are young birds, which have not yet 
fully assumed the adult plumage, they may safely be left out of 
the comparison. The remaining two are U.S. National Museum, 
No. 88701, ¢ ,Fuji, July 2, 1882, a fully adult bird, just moulted 
into a fresh plumage,—possibly the mother of the two young 
birds referred to, which were shot in the same locality on the 
same day,—and the other, No. 91392, 3, Tate-Yama, December 
17, 1882. The latter is unquestionably a typically slender-billed 
bird, very much like the one described from Kamtschatka, with 
a slightly longer bill, the length of which exactly equals the 
average of the eight specimens from Korea and Norway referred 
to above, while the amount of white on the tail almost reaches 
the maximum. The bill is just a trifle higher than that of the 
other slender-billed specimens (though not reaching the maximum 
height of specimens measured by Blasius, e.g., his Nos. 30, 31), 
but its shape is normal, and differs in that respect from the 
resident Scandinavian birds as much as any one in the series. 
The Fuji-Yama bird, found breeding near the extreme southern 
range of the species, differs only in having the bill shorter than 
any other specimen in the series. The shape, however, is that of 
N. macrorhynchus, and the white on the tail is almost up to the 
average, as established by Blasius, or 3 mm. wider than the 
maximum of any specimen referred by him to the typical thick- 
billed form. That the shortness of the bill is no argument 
against referring this Japanese specimen to the Siberian form is 
very plain, from the fact that it is nearly identical with a Yenisej 
specimen collected by Mr. Seebohm himself (No. 176 of his col- 
lection, fide Blasius, ‘ Ornis,’ 1886, p. 472, extra, p. 36, No. 8).* 
My material, therefore, contradicts Mr. Seebohm’s suggestion 



* In the table alluded to, the length of the bill is given as 30mm. This 
I take to be a misprint or aslip of the pen for 40 mm., as the length from 
nostril to tip of bill is said to be 34-2 mm., exactly as in the Japanese speci- 
men before me, the exposed culmen of which is 40 mm. 
