PASSERES. ( 129 ) AMPELIDM. 



THE WAXWING. 



BOHEMIAN WAXWING, BOHEMIAN CHATTERER, SILK TAIL, 

 WAXEN CHATTERER. 



Ampelis garrulus. 



The glossy Finches chatter 

 Up and down, up and down. 



Jean Ingelow. 



This beautiful bird occasionally visits Berwickshire during 

 winter and spring, at uncertain intervals. The earliest 

 notice of its occurrence in the county is that by the Eev. 

 Andrew Baird, in his report on the united parishes of Cock- 

 burnspath and Oldcambus, in the iV^ew Statistical Account 

 of Scotland, written in 1834. In the following year the 

 Eev. John Turnbull of Eyemouth, in his report on that 

 parish in the same publication, mentions that it had been 

 sometimes seen in the plantations round Netherbyres. In 

 December 1835 one was caught near Coldstream, and kept 

 in a cage for some time by the late Dr. Johnston of 

 Berwick, who, in a letter to his friend, Mr. Joshua Alder, 

 of Newcastle-on-Tyne, says : — " Tell Mr. A. Hancock that I 

 have a fine Waxwing chirping away merrily." ^ Major- 

 General Cockburn-Hood of Stainrigg has informed me 

 that a specimen was shot on his estate about 1851. In 

 April 1883, I saw in a collection of birds made by the 



1 I am indebted for this information to Mrs. Barwell-Carter, of The Anchorage, 

 Berwick, daughter of the late Dr. Johnston, who possesses a very beautiful 

 coloured drawing of the bird by the late Mrs. Johnston. 



VOL. I. I 



