The Cedar Bird. 



53 



young. Most of the birds \vhicli I have .studied at the nest have been entirely lacking in 

 appendages of this kind. 



Late in spring the Cedar-birds are seen coursing about in small squads, selecting some 

 treetop for an observatory, and always showing the most marked uniformity, there being 

 little to distinguish the sexes either in size or color. Their plump oval forms and easy. 

 undulating flight are characteristic, and their manner of flying and perching in compact 

 bodies as one bird should not escape the observer. Apple trees of moderate size are in 

 high favor, since they afford 

 such fine opportunities for 

 nest-building, and are usually 

 surrounded by good feeding 

 grounds. 



Two summers ago some 

 \Vaxwings built on the hori- 

 zontal bough of a pine tree, 

 just above a Robin's nest. 

 Song Sparrows and Chipping 

 Sparrows also occupied the 

 same tree. They usually fre- 

 quent scrubby pastures, select- 

 ing the witch-hazel, or thorn- 

 apple bushes by preference, 

 and occasionally a small sap- 

 ling oak or maple. The nest 

 is either set in a fork or sad- 

 dled to a spreading branch, at 

 a height of from five to twenty 

 feet. It is nicely wrought from 

 vegetable and animal material 

 such as dead grass, roots, fine 

 twigs, weed-stems, pine need- 

 les, wool, yarn, and twine. A 

 nest built in an orchard was 

 composed of dead clover stems, 

 witch grass, with thistle-down 

 and the fluffy heads of the In- 

 dian tobacco, a plant growing 

 close by, worked over its rim 

 and interior. 



Four or five eggs are ordinarily laid, but the total product of ten nests which I 

 examined in 1899 was only thirty-six eggs, out of which about twenty-five young were 

 hatched and from sixteen to twenty reared. 



The parental instincts during the early days of nest-building and incubation are often 

 weak, and this is shown to a marked degree in the Cedar-bird, who is easily robbed and 

 ever ready to take fright and abandon its eggs. 



Fig. 35. Cedar-bird chorus at the most exciting moment just before food 

 is served, August 6, 1899, two days before flight and the development of the 

 sense of fear. Life-size X 3. 



