467 



17 



further disturbed. On the 7th of April we found three naked, blind young ones in the nest, and 

 one egg, which was afterwards hatched. Thus, as the term of incubation extended over eighteen 

 days, I surmise that the young emerge from the eggs from seventeen to nineteen days after the 

 time when the female commences sitting. We kept away from the nest for some time, and again 

 visited it just when the parent birds were busy feeding the young. From afar we could hear 

 the latter calling for food ; and the parents now, directly any danger threatened, betrayed their 

 anxiety by uttering a harsh note of alarm, and would not leave the neighbourhood of the nest. 

 This alarm-note is corvine, but somewhat modulated, and is not unlike the alarm-note of the 

 Missel-Thrush. 



" On the 25 th of April I had the youngest of the four birds taken out of the nest, killed, 

 and sent to me at Zurich, so that I could take notes of its nestling-plumage, and also examine 

 the contents of its stomach. This latter I found to contain half animal and half vegetable 

 matter, the former consisting of fragments of snails (Helix ericetorum, Mull.) and of three species 

 of insects (Otiorhynclms niger, 0. villoso-punctatus, and some sort of Hister, which I could not 

 quite make out). The vegetable matter consisted of fragments of the fruit of Juglans regia, 

 Linn., of the common hazel (Corylus avellana, Linn.), and of the three-cornered seeds of the 

 mountain-ash." 



Most birds allied to the Crows feed their nestling young almost, if not entirely, on insect 

 food; and, as Mr. Vogel justly remarks, it shows the wonderful provisions of nature that the 

 young of this species, which are hatched at a season of the year when it would be almost 

 impossible to procure a sufficient supply of insect food, should be able to subsist equally well on 

 vegetable matter. Mr. Sabanaeff informs me that it breeds in the Government of Perm, in 

 Russia, nesting in April. He found numbers of their old nests in the Ural, in conifer trees at no 

 great altitude. He informs me that, owing to their habit of carrying off seeds of conifers, and 

 especially of the cedar, to great distances, they become unwitting agents in the propagation and 

 distribution of those trees. 



I have two clutches of the eggs of this species in my collection — one obtained from Pastor 

 Theobald, consisting of three eggs, taken on Bornholm, April 15th, 1865, and the other taken 

 in Styria in April 1868. The ground-colour of these eggs is pale whitish sea-green; and the 

 markings are pale liver-brown and small in size. The eggs from Bornholm have the spots very 

 much smaller and more sparingly scattered over the surface of the shell than those from Styria. 

 In size they vary from 1^ by f § to 1^ by 1^. 



Before closing this article I must express my acknowledgments to the Bitter von Tschusi 

 Schmidhofen, who, hearing that I was on the eve of publishing my article on the Nutcracker, 

 wrote to request me to defer so doing until he could place at my disposal the mass of materials 

 he had collected, and which he was on the eve of publishing. Having just received a copy of 

 his monograph ' Der Tannenheher,' I am enabled to extract from it, as will be seen above, many 

 interesting details respecting the range and habits of the present species. 



The specimens figured are those 1 have described, the adult bird being in my collection, and 

 the nestling in that of Professor Newton. 



In the preparation of the above article I have examined the following specimens: — 



z 



