70 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



seen perched on bare branches and making short sallies after flying insects in true 

 flycatcher style. Early in July a berry-bearing shrub (Shepherdia canadensis) 

 of general distribution in the region came into bearing, and the waxwings, as 

 well as other species of birds, fed upon the berries of this plant to a great extent. 

 The young waxwings we took from the nest had also been fed upon these same 

 berries. 



Dr. Thomas S. Roberts (1932) says: "The Bohemian Waxwing is 

 fond of tree sap, especially that of the sugar maple, and when the sap 

 begins to run in early spring, a leaking tree-trunk will attract a whole 

 flock. * * * With the warm days of early spring, it becomes a 

 'flycatcher' and may be seen sallying out from the tree-tops in pursuit of 

 the tiny flies and beetles that fill the upper air even before the snow and 

 ice have disappeared. The stomach at such times will be found packed 

 with many hundreds of these minute insects." He gives a long list of 

 berries and fruits eaten, and adds that, in times of stress, it will feed 

 on "rotten apples and cranberries gleaned from garbage cans and 

 dumping places in the rear of residences and stores." 



Mr. Farley sends me the following note : "I am told by trappers in 

 the mountains that, in summer, these birds begin to eat the wild rasp- 

 berries just as soon as they show any signs of ripening, and from that 

 time on, until the berries fall off, the bills and the faces of the birds are 

 smeared with the red juices. During their stay in central Alberta, 

 beginning late in October, their chief food in the country consists of 

 chokecherries, hawthorn, and rose hips, all of which remain on the 

 trees late. As long as these fruits can be had the birds will remain. In 

 the towns and cities, where the shrub Cotoneaster is now grown com- 

 monly, the Bohemians feed on the blue berries produced on this bush 

 and prefer them to any other food. When feeding on these, their faces 

 and bills are always colored by the blue juices." 



Although there is a long list of berries and fruits on which these 

 waxwings feed, the most important two are the berries of the mountain- 

 ash and those of the cedars or junipers ; at least these are the foods most 

 often mentioned, and they are probably decided favorites. The moun- 

 tain-ash berries are so popular with these birds that they will flock to a 

 tree in fruit day after day until it is entirely stripped of its berries 

 and until all those that have fallen to the ground have been picked up. 

 A mountain-ash tree in fruit is sure to attract all the waxwings in the 

 vicinity, provided it has not been stripped of its fruit by starlings, 

 robins, or other birds before the waxwings arrive, for it is one of the 

 most popular of berry-bearing trees or shrubs. 



The cedars are more widely distributed and there are many more of 

 them ; they provide an abundant food supply for the waxwings. Mr. 

 Cameron (1908) says that, in Montana in winter, these waxwings sub- 

 sist "entirely on cedar berries, which have a sweet taste and tinge the 

 excrement of the birds red, so that familiar roosting places in the high 

 pines are infallibly marked by the red-stained snow beneath." 



