BOMB YC ILL A. 



BOMHYI 



* ! 



off into the stomach. I now suffered the bird to fly at Urge, 

 ml for several days be defended from th tree* in which he perched 

 to my arm for food ; but the moment he WM satisfied he avoided the 

 cage, and appeared by hi* re*tleane unable to survive the loss of 

 liberty. He now came seldomer to me, and finally joined the lisping 

 muster-err of ' tse, tM, U*y and was enticed away after two or three 

 attempt* by his more attractive and suitable associates. Wlu-n V..UIIL;, 

 nature provided him with a loud impatient voice, and ' W-did, U'-cliil, 

 kal-to'-dtd ' (often alio the clamorous cry of the young Baltimore) was 

 hi* deafening and almost incessant call for food. Another young bin! 

 of the first brood, probably neglected, cried so loud and plaintively to 

 a male Baltimore brad in the same tree, that he commenced feeding 

 it Mr. Winship of Brighton informs me that one of the young Cedar- 

 Birds which frequented the front of his house in quest of honeysuckle- 

 berries, at length on receiving food, probably also abandoned by his 

 roving parents, threw himself wholly on his protection. At large 

 day and night, he still regularly attended the dessert of tho dinner- 

 table for his portion of fruit, and remained steadfast in his attachment 

 to Mr. Winship till killed by an accident, being unfortunately trodden 

 under foot." 



American Wax- Wing (Bombfdlla Carolinrntii], male. 



The following is Wilson's description : " Length seven inches, 

 extent eleven inches ; head, neck, breast, upper part of the back and 

 wing-covert*, a dark fawn colour, darkest on the back and brightest 

 on the front ; head ornamented with a high, pointed, almost upright 

 erect ; line from the nostril over the eye to the hind head velvety 

 black, bordered above with a fine line of white, and another line of 

 white passes from the lower mandible ; chin black, gradually bright- 

 ening into fawn-colour, the feathers there lying extremely close ; bill 

 black, upper mandible nearly triangular at the base, without bristles, 

 abort, rounding at the point, where it is deeply notched ; the lower 

 scolloped at the tip, and turning up ; tongue as in the rest of the 

 genus, broad, thin, cartilaginous, and lacerated at the end; belly 

 yellow ; vent white ; wings deep slate, except the two secondaries 

 next the body, whose exterior vanes are of a fawn-colour, and interior 

 ones white, forming two whitish strips there, which are very con- 

 spicuous ; rump and tail-coverts pale light blue; tail the same, gradu- 

 ally deepening into black, and tipped for half an inch with rich yellow. 

 Six or seven and sometimes the whole nine secondary feathers of the 

 wings are ornamented at the tips with small red oblong appendages, 

 resembling red sealing-wax ; these appear to be a prolongation of the 

 shaft*, and to be intended for preserving the ends and consequently 

 the vanes of the quills from being broken and worn away by the 

 almost continual fluttering of the bird among the thick branches of 

 the cedar. The feathers of those birds which are without these 

 appendage* are uniformly found ragged on the edges, but smooth and 

 perfect in those on whom the marks are full and numerous. These 

 singular marks have been considered as belonging to the mnl 

 from the circumstance perhaps of finding female birds without them. 

 They are however common to both male and female. Six of the latter 



are now. lying before me, each with largo and numerous clusters of 

 eggs, and having (he waxen appendages in full perfection. The young 

 birds do not receive them until the second fall, wln-n in moulting 

 time they may be seen fully formed, as the feather is developed from 

 it* sheath. I have once or twice found a solitary one on the extremity 

 of one of the tail-feathers. The eye is of a dark blood-colour ; the 

 legs and claws black ; the inside of the mouth orange ; gape wide ; and 

 the gullet capable of such distension as often to contain twelve or fifteen 

 cedar-berries, and serving as a kind of craw to prepare them for 

 digestion. The chief difference in the plumage of the male and female 

 consists in the dulneas of the tint* of the latter, the inferior appear- 

 ance of the crest, and the narrowness of the yellow bar at the tip of 

 the tail" 



B. plumicoptcra, the Asiatic Wax- Wing. The discovery of the Red- 

 Winged Chatterer, or Japanese Wax-Wing, is one of the fruit - 

 Siebold's scientific mission to Japan by the government of the Nether- 

 lands. In size it bears a greater resemblance to the Cedar-Bird than 

 to the Bohemian Wax -Wing, but differs from both in the nakedness 

 of the nostrils (which are not hidden by the small feathers of the front, 

 like the nostrils of the other two species of this small but > 

 group), in the length of the crest, and the beautiful black pi urn 

 which it is ornamented, and by the entire absence of the wax-like 

 appendages that tip the secondaries of its congeners. 



The length of the Japanese Wax-Wing is six inches and six lines. 

 The base of the bill is bordered by a black band, which passes to the 

 back of the head, surrounding the eye in its way, and terminates in 

 the lower crest-feathers, which are of the same colour throughout ; 

 the chin and throat are black ; the crest is long, composed above of 

 feathers of an ashy-reddish colour with an inferior layer of the black 

 plumes already alluded to ; the breast, upper part*, and wing-coverts 

 are of a brownish-ash, and a red band traverses the wing about the 

 middle of it ; all the quills are of an ashy -black, the greater quills 

 terminated with black and tipped with white ; the tail is of an ashy- 

 black, tipped with vivid red ; the middle of the belly is of a whitish- 

 yellow ; and the lower toil-coverts chestnut ; shanks and feet black. 



Asiatic Wax-Wing (Homtfcilla phmticoptera), male. 



The specie* is found in the neighbourhood of Nangasaki. 



Temminck, to whom we are indebted for our knowledge of the bird, 

 which is described and figured in his ' Planches Colorizes,' says that 

 there is a specimen in the galleries of the museum of the Pays-Baa, 

 and another in the collection of M. Blomhnf, the resident at Japan ; 

 and he observes that the absence of the nostril-plumes furnishes a 

 proof, also afforded in the genera Corvut and liarrula, in contradic- 

 tion to the opinion of those systematise who would separate the 

 omnivorous birds with covered nostrils from those which have those 

 organs smooth or naked, and divide them into distinct groups. He 

 also considers the proper position of the genus to be near the /' 

 i>, and the Holla (Colarit of Cuvier, Eurytlomtu of Vieillot). 



BOMBY'LID^K, a family of Insects of Hie onli-r l>i)>lcra, 

 distinguished chiefly by having a long proboscis. Tin Uly in short 

 and very hairy. Antemnc moderate, four-jointed, the basal joint long, 

 second very short, third longest, the apical joint minute and tapering 



