AMPELIS CEDRORUM : CEDAR-BIRD. 



193 



bers, however, endure the rigor of winter without 

 inconvenience, at least as far north as Massachusetts, 

 collecting in flocks in groves and thickets, where they 

 feed upon various berries and other persistent small- 

 fruits, especially those of the cedar. At more favor- 

 able periods of the year they find abundant food in 

 cherries and other garden fruits, their devotion to 

 which makes the horticulturist treat them with sus- 

 picion, if not with outright 

 hostility ; but they never- 

 theless are much more ben- 

 eficial than injurious to his 

 property, destroying, 

 as they do, great num- 

 bers of hurtful bugs and 

 caterpillars — particularly 

 the noxious canker-worms, 

 which the English spar- 

 rows scarcely touch. Not 

 seldom, also, they get the 

 better of tiie easy indolence 

 which forms so marked a 



trait of theirs, and make vigorous sallies after flying 

 insects, which they take on the wing with no little 

 address. The Waxwings are very sociable, amiable, 

 and even aff'ectionate in disposition ; they go in flocks 

 nearly all the year, and seem so well satisfied with 

 each other and with the easy life they lead as to be in 

 no hurry to enter upon household duties. It is usually 

 late in June, or even July, before the dilatory birds 

 pair ofi" and make a nest. For this purpose they 

 resort to a cedar bush, or orchard tree, and build 

 a rather bulky structure of the most miscellaneous 

 13 



Fig. 40. — Cedar Bird. (Natural size.) 



