



NUCIFRAGA MULTIPUNCTATA, Gould. 



Many-spotted Nutcracker. 



Nucifraga multipunctata, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc, February 27, 1849. 





The discovery of a new species of a group so limited in the number of its members as the genus Nucifraga, 

 will I am sure be regarded by every ornithologist with no ordinary degree of interest ; and it certainly 

 affords me much pleasure to introduce to their notice the fine bird here represented, with which I first 

 became acquainted while engaged in making a catalogue of the collection of birds belonging to the Philo- 

 sophical Society of York, to the Council of which I am indebted for permission to describe and figure it in 

 the present work. The only information I could obtain respecting the specimen was, that it had been received 

 from India with a few other birds, one of which being the rare Carduelis Burtoni described by me in the 

 " Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London" for 1837, we might reasonably infer that the same habitat 

 was common to the wbole. While these sheets were being prepared for the press, a second example, toge- 

 ther with other specimens of Carduelis Burtoni, has come under my notice in a collection of Indian birds 

 just sent to this country, the greater part of which had been made at Simla and in Afghanistaun, which, 

 until we obtain more positive information on the subject, may be regarded as the native habitat of this fine 

 Nutcracker. 



The Nucifraga multipunctata exceeds in size both the N. Caryocatactes and N hemispila, but at the same 

 time has a smaller and more slender bill than either of those birds ; it also differs from both of them in its 

 lengthened and cuneiform tail ; it bas a greater quantity of white on the apical portion of the tail-feathers 

 than the European species, but less than is found in the N. hemispila ; the white markings of the back and 

 the entire under surface are also much larger and more numerous than in either of the other species, and 

 are most remarkably developed on the scapularies ; unlike the other species also, these white markings are 

 as conspicuous on the thighs as on the other parts of the under surface. 



Crown of the head and nape of the neck brownish black ; feathers of the face, sides of the neck, back, 

 chest and abdomen brownish black, with a broad and conspicuous mark of dull white down the centre ; 

 wings glossy greenish black, the coverts and secondaries with a lengthened triangular mark of white at the 

 tip, a faint trace of a similar mark appearing on the tips of the primaries ; tail glossy greenish black, the 

 two centre feathers slightly, the next on each side more largely, and the remaining three extensively tipped 

 with white, the extent of the white increasing as the feathers recede from the centre ; under tail-coverts 

 white ; upper tail-coverts and thighs striated with white. 



The figures are of the natural size. 



St! 

 if 



4 



§ 



D 



1 



i 



I 



■si 



* 



s 



1 



m 



■!f 



K] 





8 





