CEDAR WAXWING. 
the Bush, says of the call-note: ‘‘ Formerly I gave the 
Tanager credit for only one song,—the one which sug- 
gests the Robin laboring under an attack of hoarseness; 
but I have discovered that he himself regards his chip- 
cherr as of equal value.” Possibly there are many who 
do not esteem the song of the Tanager very highly. To 
tell the truth, the gorgeousness of the little fellow’s cos- 
tume eclipses his fame as a musician; but we must travel 
far to hear another voice with such-a perfectly delicious 
reedlike quality, and it would tax the ingenuity of an 
accomplished whistler to imitate it with any approach to 
a creditable semblance of its singular beauty. 
Family Ampelide. WAXWINGS. 
This small family includes but one species, the Cedar- 
bird, which may be justly called common in the eastern 
United States. It is devcid of any musical ability, but is 
otherwise very interestiny. 
Cedar Wax- This Cedar Waxwing, or Cedarbird, as 
wing he is sometimes called, is most certainly a 
Cherrybird RT ieee ae 
: tailor-made” bird if ever there was one 
Ampelis 4 ahs 
CE aan which deserved that significant appella- 
L.7.15inches tion. His feathers are a close fit, his style 
Aprilioth, or refined and irreproachable; his orderly 
Ed pit A appearance is in sharp contrast with that 
characteristically dishevelled morsel of bird-life which 
we call the Chickadee, and his dignified carriage is an 
unexceptionable model for other members of the feath- 
ered tribe. * His colors (and conduct as well) are quiet 
almost to the point of being Quakerish; upper parts a 
soft tone of light brown graded to gray on wings and 
tail; head conspicuously crested; region about the eye 
and beneath the bill black; tail tipped with a yellow 
band; secondaries, and sometimes tail, in the yellow 
part, tipped with scarlet spots resembling red sealing. 
wax. Under parts like the back, but paling to a yellow: 
* Mr. Ned Dearborn, in his Birds of Durham, calls them ‘‘ the tig» 
tops of feathered aristocracy.” 
147 
