NUCIFRAGA MULTIPUNCTATA, Gowa.
Many-spotted Nutcracker.

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

 

Tue discovery of a new species of a group so limited in the number of its members as the genus Nuci/raga,
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 im
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 Burton 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 whole. While these sheets were being prepared for the press, a second example, toge-
ther with other specimens of Carduels Burton, 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 has a greater quantity of white on the apical portion of the tail-feathers
than the European species, but less than is found in the WM. 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.
brownish black; feathers of the face, sides of the neck, back,

Crown of the head and nape of the neck
and conspicuous mark of dull white down the centre ;

chest and abdomen brownish black, with a broad
wings glossy greenish black, the coverts and secondaries with a lengthene
tip, a faint trace of a similar mark appearing on the tips of the primaries ; tail glossy greenish black, the
. ac eae erat >» remaining three extensively tipped
two centre feathers slightly, the next on each side more largely, and the remaining t ly tip]
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.

d triangular mark of white at the

The figures are of the natural size.

£4\25 5