THE CEDAR WAXWING. 351 
rowan trees in your front yard some bleak day in December; they may nest in 
your orchard the following July; and you may not see them on your premises 
again for years—unless you keep cherry trees. It must be confessed (since 
the shade of the cherry tree is ever sacred to Truth) that the Cedarbird, or 
“Cherrybird,” has a single passion, a consuming desire for cherries. But don’t 
kill him for that. You like cherries yourself. All the more reason, then, 
why you should be charitable toward a brother’s weakness. Besides, he is so 
handsome,—handsomer himself than a luscious cherry even. Feast your eyes 
upon him, those marvelous melting browns, those shifting saffrons and Quaker 
drabs, those red sealing-wax tips on the wing-quills (he is canning cherries, 
you see, and comes provided). Feast your eyes, I say, and carry the vision to 
the table with you—and a few less cherries. Or, if there are not enough for 
you both, draw a decent breadth of mosquito-netting over the tree, and ab- 
solve your soul of murderous intent. Remember, too, if you require self- 
justification, that earlier in the season he diligently devoured noxious worms 
and insect pests, so that he has a clear right to a share in the fruit of his labors. 
Cherries are by no means the only kind of fruit eaten by these birds. 
Like most orchard-haunting species, they are very fond of mulberries, while 
the red berries of the mountain ash are a staple ration in fall and winter. 
Truth to tell, these beauties are sad gluttons, and they will gorge themselves 
at times till the very effort of swallowing becomes a delicious pain. 
The Cedarbird, being so singularly endowed with the gift of beauty, is 
denied the gift of song. He is, in fact, the most nearly voiceless of any of 
the American Oscines, his sole note being a high-pitched sibilant squeak. In- 
deed, so high-pitched is this extraordinary note that many people, and they 
trained bird-men, cannot hear them at all, even when the Waxwings are 
squeaking all about them. It is an almost uncanny spectacle, that of a company 
of Waxwings sitting aloft in some leafless tree early in spring, erect, immov- 
able, like soldiers on parade, but complaining to each other in that faint, pene- 
trating monotone. It is as tho you had come upon a company of the Immor- 
tals, high-removed, conversing of matters too recondite for human ken, and 
surveying you the while with Olympian disdain. You steal away from the 
foot of the tree with a chastened sense of having encountered something not 
quite understandable. 
The dilatory habits of these birds are well shown in their nesting, which 
they put off until late June or July, for no apparent reason. In constructing 
the nest the birds use anything soft and pliable which happens to catch the 
eye. Some specimens are composed entirely of the green hanging mosses, 
while others are a complicated mixture of twigs, leaves, rootlets, fibers, 
grasses, rags, string, paper, and what not. The nest may be placed at any 
moderate height up to fifty feet, and a great variety of trees are used altho 
orchard trees are favorites. The birds are half gregarious, even in the nest- 
