BOHEMIAN WAXWING 65 



other seemed to tire of the performance and flew away, followed at 

 once by its mate." 



Nesting. — Many years ago, Professor Baird (1865) made the fol- 

 lowing announcement as to our first knowledge of the nesting habits 

 of this species : 



For many years autlientic eggs of the Bohemian Chatterer were greatly sought 

 after, but it was not until 1856 that they were brought to the notice of the 

 scientific world, when the late Mr. H. Wolley discovered them in Lapland. 

 Early duplicates from his collection were sold at five guineas each, and although 

 a good many have since been obtained, they are yet considered as great prizes. 

 A nest, with its eggs, of those collected by Mr. Wolley, has been presented to 

 the [Smithsonian] Institution by Mr. Alfred Newton, The only instances on 

 record of their discovery in America are of a nest and one egg by Mr. Kennicott, 

 on the Yukon, in 1861, and a nest and single egg on the Anderson River, by Mr. 

 MacFarlane, both of which, with the female parents, are in the possession of 

 the Institution. 



Mr. Swarth (1922), in his excellent account of the breeding colony 

 on the upper Stikine, mentions several other breeding stations that 

 have been discovered since the above-mentioned early records and 

 prior to his own discovery, and gives much interesting information 

 about other phases of the life history of these little-known birds, 

 which will be taken up later. But first I want to include some con- 

 tributed notes on more recent nestings in some other localities. 



Frank L. Farley writes to me : "Bohemian waxwings are apparently 

 as erratic in their selection of nesting territory as they are in their 

 annual wanderings to and from their summer homes. During my 

 early visits to the muskeg country, lying between the Athabaska and 

 the Pembina Rivers, about 100 miles northwest of Edmonton, Alberta, 

 I was not successful in locating nesting pairs, although occasional 

 birds were seen, and the country seemed suitable for such purposes. 

 On such occasions the birds all disappeared before our departure for 

 home. Wlien I visited the region in May 1938, waxwings appeared 

 daily in fair numbers, and several pairs were found nesting toward 

 the end of the month about our camp. On May 28 two nests were 

 located in tall jack pines. One of these contained four and the other 

 six eggs. The nesting trees were about 100 feet apart and were close 

 to an old logging trail that traverses the country between the two 

 rivers. The nests were built on horizontal branches close to the 

 main trunk and about 35 feet from the ground. The nests were 

 made of dry pine and tamarack twigs, intermixed with coarse grasses 

 and tree mosses. The lining is of finer grass, bits of soft black moss, 

 and a fluffy white down, the product of some native plant. The ex- 

 terior is more or less covered with moss and lichens. The diameter 

 outside is G inches and the depth 4 inches. The cup is nearly 3 inches 

 deep and the same in width." 



A. D. Henderson contributes the following account : "This beautiful 



