CEDAR WAXWING 87 



The young when born are perfectly naked, without the natal down found in 

 most young birds. The tu'st few days they grow in size only. By the fourth 

 day a row of small black pimples shows along the middle of the back where 

 the first feathers are starting through. In six days the feathers of the back 

 and the wing quills come through and pimples begin to show on the breast. By 

 seven or eight days the eyes begin to open and more pimples appear on top of 

 the head. In eight or nine days the head and breast feathers appear, the feathers 

 and the wing quills come through and pimples begin to show on the breast. By 

 ten to twelve days the throat and tail feathers appear, the wing quills and head 

 feathers break their sheaths, and the creamy white streak above the eye, a mark 

 of the young birds only, begins to show plainly. By twelve to fourteen days 

 the eyes are wide open and all the feathers are unsheathed or unsheathing except 

 those forming the black patch on tlie forehead and about the eyes. These 

 feathers are last of all to appear and do not break the sheaths till about the 

 fifteenth day or later, sometimes after the young have left the nest. This fact 

 appears to have led some writers to state that young Waxwings do not have 

 this black mark. By fourteen to eighteen days the young are fully fledged and 

 leave the nest shortly, being able to fly a little as soon as they leave. For a few 

 days after leaving they may usually be found in the vicinity of the nest, the whole 

 brood perched together in a row, with necks stretched and bills pointing up in the 

 air in the same manner as the adults. 



Of brooding he says: "After the young hatch the female broods 

 closely for several days until they become partially feathered and the 

 eyes begin to open. During this time she seldom leaves the nest and 

 never for more than an hour at a time. After this she broods but 

 little in the daytime but continues to brood at night until the young 

 are about twelve days old. I believe the male does not brood at all." 

 Mr. Saunders states that the young birds left the nest when approxi- 

 mately 16 days old, and that the parents "feed the young only at long 

 intervals, rarely as short as fifteen minutes and usually of from three 

 quarters of an hour to an hour or more." 



George G. Phillips (1913) illustrates the tameness of young cedar 

 waxwings by a personal experience he had with a brood whose parents 

 had disappeared. He raised them by hand, feeding them with berries 

 and later on bread and milk. They became very tame, and even after 

 he liberated them they came to him like pets. "AVlierever I was about 

 the place," he says, "they were liable to appear. Each morning as I 

 stepped on the porch their cry greeted me, and instantly four little 

 monoplanes would be coming full speed toward me. I always threw 

 up my arm for a perch, and they would suffer me to carry them thus 

 about the grounds and to the house." 



Two other writers, Mrs. Whittle (1928) and Mrs. Nice (1941), re- 

 port in detail studies of captive young cedar waxwings to which 

 readers are referred. 



The Juvenal cedar waxwing seems rather disheveled in comparison 

 with its spruce parent : the streaks on the breast and the restriction 

 of the black about the eye detract from the trim stylishness of the 

 adult. 



