GOLDEN ORIOLE 



581 



Waxwing- Sinccthe handsome waxwing — tlic typical representa- 



(Ampelis ^'^'^ °^ ^^^^ family Ampelid<u — differs from all other 



ffarrulus). British birds by the presence on the tips of most 



of the secondary wing-quills of drop-like expansions 

 comparable in appearance to red sealing-wax, no description of either 

 the species or the family is requisite on this occasion. The function 

 or object of this peculiar structure feature does not appear to have 

 been ascertained. Waxwings, whose long 

 " whiskers " and puce-coloured plumage, 

 with bands of yellow on the wings and 

 tail, render them unmistakable at the first 

 glance, are circumpolar birds, breeding 

 within the Arctic Circle, and visiting cen- 

 tral and eastern Europe in autumn and 

 winter. During these migrations, a certain 

 number of these birds frequently visit 

 Great Britain, making their appearance 

 most commonly in the north-eastern and 

 eastern districts, where they occasionally 

 arrive in large flocks. It is said, indeed, 

 that scarcely a year passes without one 

 or more waxwings being seen in Great 

 Britain ; and a pair was observed in 

 Shropshire so recently as January 1906. 



Waxwings are active birds, associating 

 in companies, and feeding in summer chiefly on insects, but in winter 

 resorting from necessity to a diet of berries. As they are remarkably 

 silent, the name of " chatterer," by which they are sometimes desig- 

 nated, can scarcely be considered appropriate. 



WAXWING MAI.K 



Golden Oriole ^^^ golden oriole, typifying the family Oriolida^, is 

 (Oriolus e-albula) ^ ^'^^^ ^^ unmistakable and easy of recognition as 

 the waxwing, and, strictly speaking, therefore requires 

 no description ; but since there is a marked difference in the colouring 

 of the two sexes, a brief diagnosis may be advisable. The oriole 

 family is confined to the Old World, and apparently related to the 

 starlings (to be considered next), with which its members agree in that 

 the plumage of the nestlings is streaked ; they differ, however, in 

 having well -developed bristles at the gape of the beak. From the 

 crow tribe, orioles differ not only by the colouring of the plumage of 

 both nestlings and adults, but by having the cutting - edges of the 



