1'HE TRUE NUTHATCHES. 
i 2 7 
Adult Hale. — General colour above clear grey or slaty-blue, 
including the wings and centre tail-feathers ; quills dusky-brown’ 
externally slaty-blue, the primaries whitish near the base of the 
outer web ; tail-feathers, except the centre ones, black, with 
a grey tip, the inner web of the three penultimate feathers 
white at the tip, the outermost tail-feathers with a white sub- 
terminal band extending obliquely across both inner and outer 
webs; over the eye a faint streak of greyish-white ; a black band 
enclosing the lores and the feathers below the eye, extending 
in a broad line down the sides of the neck ; cheeks and throat 
ashy-white ; remainder of under surface of body light fawn 
colour or isabelline ; the flanks vinous chestnut; under tail- 
coverts white, mottled with chestnut edges to the feathers • 
under wing-coverts like the breast, with ashy-white bases, and 
having a large patch of black near the edge of the wing ; quill- 
lining ashy white; bill slaty blue, the lower mandible paler ■ 
feet pale reddish-brown; iris hazel. Total length, 5 S inches; 
culmen, o - 8; wing, 3-4; tail, 17; tarsus, o-8. 
Adult Female. — Similar in colour to the male. Total length 
5 ’4 inches; wing, 3-35. 
Young.— Similar to the adults, but with paler and more yel- 
lowish feet, the colours all duller, the black streak on the sides 
of the head and the chestnut flanks not so strongly marked 
as in the adults. 
Range in Great Britain.— Pretty generally distributed over 
England, but becoming rarer in the north, scarcely known 
in Scotland, and altogether absent in Ireland. Mr. Howard 
Saunders says that the species appears to have decreased in 
numbers in the northern counties of late years, but in other 
Parts of England it is increasing. It has been obtained only 
m the south of Scotland, in Berwickshire and Haddington- 
s aire, though there are one or two other records. 
Range outside the British Islands. — The distribution of our Nut- 
hatch on the continent of Europe is somewhat singular and 
interesting. It is spread over Southern and Central Europe 
and extends eastward as far as Asia Minor and Palestine^ 
northward to the Baltic Provinces as far as the peninsula of 
Jutland. Here its range coalesces with that of the Scandi- 
