466 HISTORY OF THE WAXWING IN AMERICA 



the latter year. His figures were drawn from Nova Scotian 

 specimens presented to him by Thomas McCuUoch, of Pictou, 

 who procured several others in 1834, and contributed the very 

 graphic and touching biographical sketch with which Audu- 

 bon's account of the species concludes. The species appears in 

 Peabody and Giraud, and in the course of the next decade or 

 two we find it fairly represented in current literature through 

 reports of its presence in various northerly States: Ohio, 

 Storer, 1845 j Wisconsin, Hoy, 1853; Ohio, Eead, the same 

 year; Illinois, Kennicott, 1854; Massachusetts, Kneeland, 

 1857; and there are doubtless other accounts of this period 

 which I have not at hand. Dr. Brewer's late notice mentions 

 a flock of twenty or thirty which appeared in Boston in mid- 

 winter, "somewhere about 1844". 



Up to the year 1858, we had no evidence of the gathering of 

 American Bohemians in the enormous multitudes which early 

 made them famous in Europe. At that date, however, Profes- 

 sor Baird made known an instance of such prodigious flocking 

 of the species, giving us at the same time one of our western- 

 most records. "Mr. Drexler," he says, " saw ' millions' of this 

 species while in the winter camp of the South Pass wagon road 

 party, at the head of Powder Eiver, Nebraska. Every tree for 

 miles was filled with them, the flock rivalling that of the wild 

 pigeon in its size" (BNA. p. 923). This record remains singular 

 to this date, as the numerous isolated notices of the bird we 

 have since acquired all relate to ordinary occurrences in par- 

 ticular localities; though it should be added that Mr. Mcllwraith 

 reports the irregular occurrence of " vast " flocks in Canada 

 West. 



In 1861, Dr. J. G. Cooper presented the account of his cap- 

 ture of a single individual at Fort Mojave, Arizona, the first- 

 known instance of the occurence of the bird in the United 

 States west of the Eocky Mountains, and the southernmost on 

 record. "It appeared on January 10th, alter a stormy period 

 which had whitened the tops of the mountains with snow, and 

 was alone, feeding on the berries of the mistletoe, when I shot 

 it." Doubtless, as Dr. Cooper surmises, this individual was a 

 straggler from some of the neighboring mountains. I under- 

 stand that the validity of the record has been suspected ; but, 

 in one of his late papers. Dr. Cooper states that the specimen 

 is preserved in the California Academy of Science to vouch for 

 the correctness of his identification. All the citations of " Ari- 



