WAXWING in 



lichen somewhat resembles a mass of delicate rootlets, or 

 perhaps may be compared to coarse brown wool ; but some 

 of it is whitish, and in one nest there is a little of this mixed 

 with the ordinary brown or black. This main substance of 

 the nest is strengthened below by a platform of dead twigs, 

 and higher up towards the interior by a greater or less 

 amount of flowering stalks of grass, and occasionally pieces 

 of equisetum. It is also interspersed with a little reindeer 

 lichen, perhaps a sprig or two of green moss, and even some 

 pieces of willow cotton. There may also be observed a little 

 of the very fine silvery-looking fibre of grass leaves which 

 probably have been reduced to that condition by long soaking 

 in water. In one of the nests examined there were several 

 oen-feathers of small birds as an apology for a lining. 



The nest of the Waxwing is built on the branch of a 

 tree, not near the bole, and rather, as one of the observers 

 has said, standing up from the branch like a Fieldfare's or 

 other Thrush's nest, than supported by twigs touching it at 

 the sides, as the nests of many birds are supported. Of six 

 nests, four were in small spruces, one in a good-sized Scotch 

 fir, and one in a birch all placed at a height of from six to 

 twelve feet above the ground. The tree in several instances 

 was unhealthy, thin, and scraggy in its branches, to which 

 there hung a good deal of hair lichen ; and the nest seems 

 generally much exposed, though from its resemblance to the 

 *lichen hanging near, it might escape the eye." 



The eggs are from five or six to seven in number, 

 commonly of a pale purple grey, or delicate sea green, but 

 often of a pale olive, spotted and specked with blots of deep 

 brown, sometimes streaked also with a series of spots of 

 greyish lilac. 



