WAX WING. 535 



patch between the eye and the beak are all there, whilst the 

 rich mahogany of the under tail- coverts is of a quieter 

 brown ; the blooming vinous colour of the head and back 

 has not yet emerged from a homely neutral, and the crest is 

 but just indicated by the longish feathers of the crown. 

 The most marked difference between the adult and the 

 young is in the throat and under- surface generally. There 

 is at present scarcely a trace of the deep black patch of the 

 chin, and the delicate tint of the general under-surface of 

 the adult is replaced by mottled neutral and white. This 

 upon examination is found to owe its appearance to those 

 longer webs, which arising towards the root of each feather, 

 extend as far outwards as the webs which arise nearer its 

 tip, being very pale or white, and thus relie\dng, on both 

 sides, the last-mentioned darker webs." 



The Ampelidcs are regarded by many systematists as allied 

 to the Shrikes and Flycatchers. Others consider them to 

 bear affinity to the Swallows. The place here assigned to 

 the family is manifestly inappropriate, but the Editor being 

 doubtful as to its true position leaves it as it stood in former 

 editions. Some authorities have taken as the type of the 

 Linnsean genus Ampelis a South-American bird, which be- 

 longs to a very distinct and not at all nearly-related family — 

 the Cotinrjidce, and call the genus which includes the present 

 species Bomhy cilia. There can be no doubt of this treat- 

 ment being wrong. The name Ampelis was that under 

 which Aldrovandus described the bird in 1599, complaining 

 of Gesner, who had, in 1555, called it Garrulus Bohemicus 

 — the Bohemian Jay or Chatterer, and justly remarking that 

 it had nothing to do with birds of the Pie-kind, that it did 

 not chatter nor was it knowoi to be peculiar to Bohemia. 

 Linnaeus, with whom all scientific nomenclature begins, kept 

 what seemed good to him in both these names, using that of 

 Aldrovandus for the genus and Gesner's first word for the 

 species — the general likeness between a Jay and a Waxwing 

 being sufficiently obvious ; but Ampelis not being quoted for 

 any other species, this is clearly the type of the Linnaean 

 genus. Bombycilla, says Prof. Sundevall, may be traced to 



