Rare visi- 
tant. 
Food. 
Nest, &c. 
84 OMNIVORI. NUCIFRAGA. NUTCRACKER. 
Nutcracker.—Nucifraga Caryocatactes, Briss. 
PLATE 33%. 
Nucifraga caryocatactes, Briss. 2. p. 59. t. 5. f. 6.—Temm. Man. d’Ornith. 
1. p. 117. 
Corvus caryocatactes, Linn. Syst. 1. p. 157. 10.—Fau. Suec. No. 91.— 
Gmel. Syst. 1. p. 270.—Lath. Ind. Ornith. |. p. 164. t. 39.—Raii, Syn. 
p- 42. 5.— Will. p. 90. t. 20. 
Caryocatactes nucifraga, Nils. Orn. Suec. v. 1. p. 90. sp. 42. 
Le Casse noix, Buff: Ois. v. 3. p. 122. t. 9.—Jd. Pl. Ent. 50. 
Nussrabe, Meyer, Tasschenb. Deut. v. 1. p. 103. 
Nutcracker, Br. Zool. Append. t. 1.—Arct. Zool. 2. p. 252. D.— Will. (Ang.) 
p- 132. t. 20.—Lewin’s Br. Birds, t. 40.—Lath. Syn. 1. p. 400. 38.—Id. 
Supp. p. 82.—Mont. Ornith. Dict.—Jd. Supp.—Bewick’s Br. Birds.— 
Wale. Syn. 1. t. 38.—Don. Br. Birds, 4. t. 80. 
Nutcracking Crow, Shaw’s Zool. v. 7. p. 353. 
The Nutcracker is a very rare visitant in Great Britain. 
Not more than three or four instances are upon record of its 
having been observed in this country. To these I may add 
another, as this bird was seen in Netherwitton Woed, in the 
county of Northumberland, in the autumn of 1819, by my 
coadjutor in the delineations for this work, Captain RoBEerrT 
Mirrorp of the Royal Navy. 
According to the accounts given of this species by ornitho- 
logists, who have had the opportunity of attending to its ha- 
bits, it approaches, in many points, very closely to some of 
the genus Picus, particularly to those of foreign locality. 
Like them, it ascends the trunks of trees with facility, feed- 
ing on the various insects and larvee that inhabit the bark and 
wood, which its long straight bill aptly enables it to reach, 
performing a similar office to the long extensile tongue of the 
woodpecker. It feeds also upon the seeds of the different 
kinds of fir, and upon nuts, which, hke the nuthatch, it 
breaks by repeated strokes of the bill.—It selects for nidifi- 
cation the hole of a decayed tree, and this, by the labour of 
its bill, it frequently enlarges. It lays five or six eggs, of a 
yellowish-grey colour, with a few spots of yellowish or wood 
brown.—It inhabits woods and forests, in mountainous re- 
gions, and is very numerous in many of the northern parts 
