NOTES AND QUERIES. 433 



west coasts of Sjoelland. The movement appears to have commenced on 

 Sept 10th, when one was shot at Storehedinge, near the Stevns lighthouse. 

 This light is placed on the extreme easterly point of the island facing the 

 Baltic. From this date the Report says, " They were common, and many 

 were shot in different places ; at the close of September they diminished in 

 number, but at the middle of October many again arrived ; at the close of 

 the month they quite disappeared ; the last was shot on October 29th. 

 Undoubtedly several hundreds have passed over : one day, in the course of 

 half an hour, an observer watched thirty move away in parties ; mostly two 

 or three kept together ; but parties of from six to ten were also seen. All 

 the specimens examined were of the leptorhynchus form, but one pachy- 

 rhynchus." At Vordingborg, near the extreme south of Sjoelland, there 

 was a large passage in the later part of September and the beginning of 

 October. At Refsnas, on the extreme westerly point of the island facing 

 the Great Belt, from the middle of September to the middle of October, 

 large flocks of Nutcrackers were observed. All these flights appear to have 

 been on passage from north to south along both the east and west coasts, 

 presumably coming from the southern parts of Sweden. A flock of seven 

 or eight were seen at Ronne, Bornholm, on Sept. 2Qth, and four were shot, 

 all leptorhynchus. They were seen in large numbers on Bornholm at the 

 close of September and in the beginning of October. — John Coedeaux 

 (Great Cotes, Ulceby, Lincolnshire). 



Habits of the Nutcracker. — The latter part of Mr. Wiglesworth's 

 letter (p. 388), on the nesting habits of the Nutcracker, Nucifraga caryoca- 

 tactes, in which it is stated that this bird nests exclusively on the spruce fir, 

 is interesting to me as being in decided contrast to its habits in summer 

 and autumn, when only I have seen it. It is then found almost exclusively 

 in the woods of Arolla pine, Pinus cembra, under which the ground is 

 covered with half-picked cones, and from which it derives its Swiss rural 

 name, " Arolla Vogel." It is common at the head of the Visp Thai, near 

 Zermatt, where the spruce and Arolla woods grow in close proximity, but 

 not much intermixed, and it was in the latter trees only that I learnt to 

 expect it ; indeed so much did I look for the bird where I found this tree, 

 that, seeing in the distance a battered Pinus cembra, on the road to the 

 Wengern Alp, I said to my daughters who were with me, " Now we shall 

 see the Arolla Vogel," and sure enough, as we drew near, out flew half-a- 

 dozen. My friend, the late Mons. Erail Boss, used to shoot a good many 

 in the winter, and told me that the crop was always full of Arolla seed. He 

 said the birds were very good eating. Were I forty years younger I should 

 be tempted to make a spring visit to Zermatt, on purpose to investigate the 

 habits of the Nutcracker in the nesting-season ; perhaps one of your 

 younger readers will take the hint. True the hotels are then closed ; but 

 I have no doubt the proprietor, Mr. Seiler, who lives at Brieg in the winter, 



ZOOLOGIST. — NOV. 1890. % K 



