82 APPENDIX: NOS, LI.-LII. 
present we have scarcely enough examples to show that there is a 
preference for any particular kind of ground. 
Five seems to be the ordinary number of eggs; in one nest only 
there were as many as six. They have a pale salmon(?)-coloured 
ground, upon which are distributed pretty equally good-sized purple 
spots, some with more and some with less deep colour, but nearly all 
of them having a shade or penumbra, such as is common especially in 
eggs of the Chaffinch. The only very marked variety I have yet seen 
has short streaks and much smaller and more numerous spots than 
usual, of which markings a considerable proportion are of a pale 
yellowish-brown. The eggs may be about an inch in length, but hardly 
enough have been obtained to determine the average dimensions. 
Marked differences in size in the eggs of the same nest have not yet 
been observed; but, as with other birds, we find that one nest may 
have all its eggs considerably larger than those of another nest. 
In the backward and cold spring of 1856, Waxwings had their full 
complement of eggs about the 12th of June. 
_ The writer abstains for the present from offermg any remarks 
on the distribution of this bird in the breeding season, hoping that 
upon this subject, as upon the habits of the Waxwing in the 
summer, he may hereafter have some more complete observations 
to communicate, 
LII. 
Youne or THE Waxwina. 
[‘ Proceedings of the Zoological Society,’ 1857, p. 66.) 
A youne bird’ caught on the 5th of August, as it fluttered from 
the nest, had a general resemblance to the adult, though all the 
colours were more dull. The wax-like ends to the wing-feathers, the 
yellow tip to the tail, the black 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 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 relieving, on both sides, the last mentioned darker 
webs. 
1 (This was one of two caught by Kyré Niku to the south of Pallas-tunturi 
(O. W. i. p. 216). It is now in the Norwich Museum.—Eb. ] 
