82 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



among birds. The attention of the birds seemed about evenly divided between 

 eating petals and playing a sort of game. Looking from tree to tree I saw it 

 going on all around me. 



It was a game for two. One bird, talcing the initiative, with a petal in his 

 mouth, suddenly flew to his chosen playmate, alighting close beside him on the 

 twig, at the same instant offering the petal (once it was a bit of green leaf). 

 The other bird, though apparently taken unawares, was quick enough to catch 

 it on the instant it was offered. Immediately, with the petal, he hopped side- 

 wise just one small hop away from the first bird. After a pause of perhaps a 

 second, back he came close to the bird and offering the petal, which the first 

 bird on the instant caught from his bill, hopped away with it just one hop, paused 

 a second, then very suddenly hopped back, offering the petal, all just as the other 

 bird had done. And so they passed the petal back and forth, not three or four 

 times, but twelve and fifteen times, until, tiring of the play, they flew apart, or 

 the petal, with much hasty snatching from bill to bill becoming tattered and too 

 small for use, was indifferently eaten by one of the birds. 



In the moments of pause before the always sudden re-offering of the petal, 

 each bird looked straiglit ahead; the one with the petal as if trying to conceal 

 from the other the instant he meant to come back with it, and the one awaiting 

 the petal as if the rules of the game forbade his watching to see when it was 

 coming. Yet he was plainly tense and watchful, and only once did I see a bird 

 fail to get the petal. In that instance the other bird gave him another chance 

 at it, when he got it all right, and the game continued. But for this element 

 of competition, this apparent keenness to take the other bird unawares, which 

 gave the spirit of a sport to the performance, it would have more the aspect 

 of a "dance," for it was measured, dignified, and dainty, with the quality of 

 an old-time minuet. 



Certainly throughout the time I watched, it had no observable connection 

 with courtship, however indirectly the mating season may be responsible for 

 it. The choosing of a partner seemed wholly casual and disinterested, and 

 when the game palled, the birds separated as casually. 



Nesting. — ^We in New England think of the cedar waxwing's nest 

 as rather large, made of twigs, dry grass, and stalks of weeds, with 

 perhaps a few feathers and bits of twine put together loosely and 

 clumsily, but Forbush (1911) states that "in the South it is com- 

 paratively small and compact," a structure more in accord with its 

 dainty owner. 



Thomas D. Burleigh (1923) describes two nests found in Idaho: 

 "The first * * * was fifteen feet from the ground in the top of 

 a small slender larch at the edge of some underbrush at the side of 

 a road. It was compactly built of larch twigs, grasses and moss, 

 lined with the dry needles of the western white pine. The second 

 * * * was six feet from the ground in a small Douglas fir at the 

 edge of a field, and was built of weed stems and wool, lined with wool 

 and dry pine needles." 



Albert W. Honywill (1911), speaking of nests in Minnesota, says: 

 "Nests were sometimes located in the Norway pines, from the noise 

 made by the young in calling for food. Usually these nests were 

 placed upon the extreme ends of the branches and were inaccessible. 

 They were generally composed almost entirely of usnea moss." 



