BOHEMIAN WAX-WING. 285 



mon and familiar Cedar-bird, from the reproach of degeneracy. But 

 with the more enlightened opinions that now prevail, its occurrence in 

 that unexplored portion of the globe is important chiefly as tending to 

 solve the problem of the place of abode of this mysterious wanderer ; 

 especially as, by a singular coincidence, whilst we were proclaiming this 

 species as American it was received by Temminck from Japan, together 

 with a new species, the third known of the genus, which he has caused 

 to be figured and distinguished by the appropriate name of Bomhycilla 

 phcenicoptera (Boie). Besides the red band across the wing, whence its 

 name is derived, the length of its crest adorned with black feathers, and 

 the uniform absence in all states, of the corneous appendages of the 

 wings, this new species, resembling more in size and shape the Carolina 

 Wax-wing (Cedar-bird) than the present, is eminently distinguished from 

 both by wanting the small, closely set feathers covering the nostrils, 

 hitherto assigned as one of the characters of the genus. This example 

 evinces the insufficiency of that character, though Illiger considered it 

 of such importance as to induce him to unite in his great genus Corvus 

 (comprehending this as well as several other distinct groups), all the 

 species possessing it. It shows especially how erroneous it is to form 

 two separate families for the allied genera with covered or naked nos- 

 trils. In fact, the genus as it now stands, is, not the less for this aber- 

 ration, an exceedingly natural one, though the two species that are now 

 known to inhabit America are still more allied to each other than either 

 of them to the Japanese, the present (Bohemian) difi'ering chiefly by its 

 larger size, mahogany-brown tail-coverts, and cinereous belly, the first 

 being white, and the second yellowish in the Cedar-bird, which also 

 wants the yellow and white markings on the wing. Of the three species 

 now comprehended in the genus, one is peculiar to America, a second 

 to eastern Asia, and the present common to all the Arctic world. 



This small but natural group, at one time placed by Linn^ in the 

 carnivorous genus Lanius, notwithstanding its exclusively frugivorous 

 habits, was finally restored by him to Ampelis, in which he was fol- 

 lowed by Latham. Brisson placed it in Turdus, and Illiger in Corvus. 

 Ornithologists now concur in regarding it as a genus, disagreeing only 

 as to the name, some calling it Bombj/ciphora, others Bomhycivora, though 

 they all appear to have lately united in favor of the more elegant, and 

 prior termination of Bomhycilla. 



The Wax-wings, which we place in our family Sericati, having no 

 other representative in Europe or North America, are easily recognised 

 by their short, turgid bill, trigonal at base, somewhat compressed and 

 curved at tip, where both mandibles are strongly notched ; their short 

 feet, and rather long, subacute wings. But their most curious trait 

 consists in the small, flat, oblong appendages, resembling in color and 

 substance red sealing-wax, found at the tips of the secondaries in the 



