Collier's New Encyclopedia

A complete general encyclopedia of 1921 — the world as it was understood just after the Great War, from Aachen to Zwingli, across twelve volumes and six thousand pages.

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Nutcracker

in ornithology, the genus Nucifraga, and especially N. caryocatactes, common in southern Europe, a visitor to the N. portions of the Continent; flocks have been seen in Switzerland. They feed on the seeds of pine and beech, and on nuts, which they fix in some convenient crevice and hammer with the beak till the kernel is exposed.

The plumage is of different shades of brown, studded with long white spots.

Clark's nutcracker is N. columbiana.

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