NUTHATCH. 
339 
only being- on record : one shot in Flintshire, another in Kent, one seen 
in Bridg-ewater, in 1805 ; one shot in north Devon, in 1808, and seen 
in Northumberland in 1819. Most frequent in Germany; found also 
in Sweden and Denmark ; and said to visit Burg-undy in vast flocks. 
The Nutcracker is said to lay up a store of acorns and nuts for win- 
ter; but we much doubt the fact, as no animal but such as become 
partly torpid in cold weather require such a provision. Such stores 
are most probably the collection of dormice, or some such animals, 
which being found by this bird is plundered. The same faculty is 
attributed to the jay and nuthatch ; but they only rob the granary 
of mice, who frequently deposit their winter store in the hollow of a ^ 
tree ; such as beans, peas, corn, nuts, and acorns. 
This bird, whose partial food seems to be the kernels of nuts, most 
probably breaks the shell in the manner of the nuthatch, by hacking a 
hole in it, or splitting the shell by reiterated strokes of the bill, for 
which that part seems better calculated than for cracking it by com- 
pression, as the grosbeak breaks the stones of the haw, whose bill is 
short and strong, and furnished with muscles of prodigious strength. 
It is said in some parts to keep chiefly in the pine forests, probably 
for the sake of the seed of that tree. It is also said to make its nest in 
the hole of a tree, which it perforates, or at least it enlarges what has 
already been begun by the woodpecker : the bill seems not ill-suited 
to this purpose ; its food consists of various insects and larvae, which 
inhabit the bark of trees, also upon various kinds of fir and nuts. Is 
found common in the pine forests of Russia and Siberia, and all over 
Kamtschatka. 
NUTHATCH (^Sitta Europcea, Linnaeus.) 
Sitta Europaea, Linn, Syst. 1. p. 177. — Fauna Suec. No. 104 Gmel. Syst. 1. p. 
440. — Lath. Ind. Orn. 1. p. 261. — Raii, Syn. p. 47. A. 4. — Will. p. 98. t. 23. 
— Sitta cassia, Meyer, Tasschenb. Deut. 1. p 128. — La Sitelle, ou Torchepot, 
Bujf. Ois. 5. p. 460. t. 20. — Ib. pi. Enl. 623. f. 1 — Sitelle Torchepot, Temm. 
Man. d’Orn. 1. p. 407 Kleiber, Bechst. Naturg. Heat. 2. p. 1061. — Frisch, 
Vdg. t. 39. — Nuthatch, Br. Zool. 1. No. 89. t. 38. — Will. (Angl.) p. 142. — 
Lewin’s Br. Birds, 2. t. 53. — Alhin, 2. t. 28. — Lath. Syn. 2. p, 648. — Ib. Supp. 
p. 117. — Mont. Orn. Diet. — Bewick’s Br. Birds, 1. p. 121 Pult. Cat. Dorset. 
p. 5. — Don. Br. Birds, 4. t. 81. — Flem. Br. Anim. p. 81. — Selby, pi. 39. fig. 1. 
p. 113. 
Provincial, — Nutjobber. Woodcracker. 
This is the only species met with in England. It is about the size 
of a sparrow ; length near six inches ; weight rather more than six 
drams. The bill is about three quarters of an inch long, both mandi- 
bles equally convex, and a little compressed sideways ; the upper one 
dusky, lower one whitish at the base ; irides hazel. The crown of the 
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