158 THE WAXWING 



the British Isles ' (Saunders, loc, cit.). Winters in which considerable immigrations 

 have been noted are ' 1686, 1830-1, 1834-5, 1849-50, 1866-7, 1872-3, and 1892-3 ' 

 (Saunders, loc. cit.), and 1903-4 (cf. J. G. Tuck, Zoologist, 1904, p. 115). With these 

 may be compared the two special occasions mentioned for Heligoland September 

 1847 and January 1850 (cf. Gatke, Vogelwarte Helgoland, Eng. trans., 1895, p. 226). 

 [A. L. T.] 



4. Nest and Eggs. Does not breed in the British Isles. 



5. Food. Insects, and during autumn and whiter berries of all kinds. 



[w. P. P.] 



6. Song Period. Does not sing in the British Isles, [w. p. P.] 



THE WAXWING 

 [W. P. PYCRAPT] 



The growing list of the birds of the British Islands is due to the 

 closer scrutiny which is kept on our spring and autumn migrants by 

 an ever-increasing body of skilled observers, whereby numbers of 

 small, obscurely coloured, hitherto unsuspected birds, of skulking 

 habits, are detected. But for such observers these would pass, as 

 they doubtless have passed for generations, unnoticed, being lost 

 amid the hosts of more familiar wanderers. But at irregular intervals 

 immigrants reach our shores in hosts large enough to attract the 

 attention even of the least observant among us, and one of the most 

 conspicuous instances of this kind is afforded by the waxwing, whose 

 visits, at times, take place in such numbers that they have been aptly 

 termed "invasions." Doubtless these nomads, in varying numbers, 

 have sought sanctuary with us for thousands of years past, but human 

 records go no further back than the year 1681, when a number of these 

 beautiful birds were shot at York during January of that year. 1 Since 

 when, we know that, at intervals of a year or two, these visitations 

 have continued to the present day, sometimes only a few belated 



1 Lister, Phil. Trans., 1685, pp. 11, 61, fig. 9. 



