See CORVUS, no. 8.

"This bird (says Buffon) is distinguished from the jays and magpies by the shape of its bill, which is straighter, blunter, and composed of two unequal pieces. Its instinct is also different; for it prefers the residence of high mountains, and its disposition is not so much tinged with cunning and suspicion."

They live upon hazel-nuts, acorns, wild berries, the kernels of pine-tops, and even on insects.

"Besides the brilliancy of the plumage, the nutcracker is remarkable for the triangular white spots which are spread over its whole body, except the head. These spots are smaller on the upper part, and broader on the breast; their effect is the greater, as they are contrasted with the brown ground.

"These birds are most attached, as I have observed above, to mountainous situations. They are common in Auvergne, Savoy, Lorraine, Franche-Comté, Switzerland, the Bergamasque, in Austria, in the mountains which are covered with forests of pines. They also occur in Sweden, though only in the southern parts of that country. The people in Germany call them Turkey birds, Italian birds, African birds; which language means no more than that they are foreign.

"Though the nutcrackers are not birds of passage, they fly sometimes from the mountains to the plains. Frisch says, that flocks of them are often observed to accompany other birds into different parts of Germany, especially where there are pine forests. But in 1754, great flights of them entered France, particularly Burgundy, where there are few pines; they were so fatigued on their arrival, that they suffered themselves to be caught by the hand.

"We cannot find in writers of natural history any details with regard to their laying, their incubation, the training of their young, the duration of their life, &c."