152 LAND-BIRDS. 



§ 12. AMPELID^. Waxwings. (See § 10.) 



I. AMPELIS. 



A. CEDRORUM. Cedar-bird, Cherry-bird. (^Carolina) 

 Waxwing. " Canada Robing A common resident in New 

 England, but nomadic and irregular in appearance.* 



a. 6-7 inches long. Of a peculiar warm brown (or 

 creamy chocolate ?). Chin, black. Forehead, and a broad 

 stripe through the eye, continuously the same. Belly, yellow 

 (or yellowish). Under tail-coverts, and some fine markings 

 on the head, white (or whitish). Tail, yellow-tipped. Strange 

 appendages, resembling bits of red sealing-wax, are found, 

 often upon the wings, and sometimes upon the tail, of fuU- 

 plumaged sjiecimens. 



b. The nest is rather bulky, and is composed of fine 

 grasses, weeds, roots, fibres, leaves, strips of bark, etc., some- 

 times lined with finer grasses or hairs. It is usually placed 

 in an orchard tree or in a cedar, but sometimes in other situa- 

 tions — such as the tops of birches or pasture trees, commonly 

 from eight to twenty feet above the ground. Four or five 

 eggs are laid in the latter part of «Tune or in July. They 

 average about .80 X .60 of an inch ; and are of a dirty bluish 

 white, with black and a few dark purplish spots. 



c. The Cedar-birds, to a certain extent, spend the winters 

 in eastern Massachusetts, but otherwise arrive from the South 

 in the first or second week of March. In summer they are 

 found throughout New England, and are in most places com- 

 mon. Through winter they remain in flocks, — usually in 

 retired parts of the country, — and feed upon berries until 

 spring, when they venture into more open districts. At this 

 time their demeanor is not such as to inspire cheerfulness in 

 the person observing them, for they visually sit motionless 

 upon the tops of bare trees, and occasionally give utterance 



* A common summer resident, breed- time between the middle of January 

 ing- throughout New England, but de- and the latter part of February, large 

 cidedly most numerously in the north- flocks arrive from the south, and remain 

 ern portions. In southern New Eng- throughout March and well into April, 

 land, the Cedar-bird winters sparingly There is a second migration in May, 

 and locally, but in most localities it is composed, perhaps, of our local sum- 

 seldom seen during- November, Decem- mer birds. — W. B. 

 ber, and the first half of January. Some 



