152 SINGING BIRDS. 



BOHEMIAN WAXWING. 



Ampelis garrulus. 



Char. Prevailing color cinnamon brown or fawn color, darker on 

 front head and cheeks, changing to ashy on rump ; chin and line across 

 forehead and through the eyes, rich black; wings and tail slaty; tail 

 tipped with yellow ; primaries tipped with white, secondaries with appen- 

 dages like red sealing-wax. Head with long pointed crest. Length 734 

 to 8)4^ mches. Easily distinguished from the Cedar Bird by its larger size 

 and darker color. 



Nest. In a tree, a bulky structure of twigs and roots, lined with 

 feathers. 



Eggs. 3-5; bluish white spotted with lilac and brown ; i.oo X 0.70. 



The Waxwing, of which stragglers are occasionally seen in 

 Nova Scotia, Massachusetts, Long Island, and the vicinity of 

 Philadelphia, first observed in America in the vicinity of the 

 Athabasca River, near the region of the Rocky Mountains, in 

 the month of March, is of common occurrence as a passenger 

 throughout the colder regions of the whole northern hemi- 

 sphere. Like our Cedar Birds, they associate in numerous 

 flocks, pairing only for the breeding season ; after which the 

 young and old give way to their gregarious habits, and collec- 

 ting in numerous companies, they perform extensive journeys, 

 and are extremely remarkable for their great and irregular 

 wanderings. The circumstances of incubation in this species 

 are wholly unknown. It is supposed that they retire to the 

 remote regions to breed ; yet in Norway they are only birds of 

 passage, and it has been conjectured that they pass the sum- 

 mer in the elevated table-land of Central Asia. Wherever they 

 dwell at this season, it is certain that in spring and late autumn 

 they visit northern Asia or Siberia and eastern Europe in vast 

 numbers, but are elsewhere only uncertain stragglers, whose ap- 

 pearance, at different times, has been looked upon as ominous 

 of some disaster by the credulous and ignorant. 



The Waxen Chatterers, like our common Cedar Birds, ap- 

 pear destitute of song, and only lisp to each other their usual 

 low, reiterated call of ze ze re, which becomes more audible 



