THE WAXWING 



[ORDER : Passeres. FAMILY : Ampelidce] 

 PRELIMINARY CLASSIFIED NOTES 



[F. C. R. JOURDAIN. W. P. PYCRAFT. A. L. THOMSON] 



WAX WING [Bombycilla garrulus (Linnaeus). Ampelis garrulus L. French, 

 jaseur de Boheme ; German, Seidenschwanz ; Italian, becco frusone.'] 



I. Description. The Waxwing may be instantly recognised by the horny, 

 sealing-wax red tips of the secondaries, and the chestnut under tail-coverts. The 

 sexes are alike, and there is no seasonal change of plumage. (PL 61.) Length 7'25 

 in. [184 mm.]. The adult has the lores and a band at the base of the beak black, 



and a large oval black spot behind 

 the eye. The crown feathers, which 

 are long and form an erectile crest, 

 are drab-brown, and this hue is 

 continued backwards, shading into 

 greyish brown on the back and 

 wings, and pure ash-grey on the 

 rump and upper tail-coverts. The 

 inner secondaries are greyer than 

 the back, and have a white oval 

 spot at the tip of the outer web, which is abruptly shorter than the inner, form- 

 ing a bar in the closed whig. From four to eight of these quills have a long, 

 spoon-shaped appendage of a sealing-wax red, as shown in the above drawings, and 

 along this for about half its length runs the longer inner web. The major-coverts 

 of the primaries each have a large white spot at the tip. The primaries in fully 

 adult birds have a terminal stripe of sulphur-yellow at the tip of the outer web, 

 and this bar is continuous with a white bar along the inner web, running almost at 

 right angles with the shaft, forming, in the closed wing, a long line of yellow, with 



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