THE WAXWING 159 



wanderers making their appearance, sometimes enormous flocks, 

 which on arrival break up into smaller flocks of fifty or more, and dis- 

 perse themselves over the country. 



Even during what we may call " waxwing " years these birds are 

 not seen in such vast flocks as occur on the Continent, though Johnson, 

 a correspondent of Ray's, writing him from Brignall in Yorkshire, in 

 May 1686 remarked, "They came near us in great flocks like field- 

 fares." According to Gesner, in 1552 they were so numerous on the 

 Rhine between Mainz and Bingen, that when flying " they cast a shade 

 like that of nightfall." But even this pales into insignificance com- 

 pared with the vast hordes of these birds which have been seen 

 together in North America, which marks the limit of its range west- 

 ward, since a naturalist named Drexler met with it on Powder River, 

 Wyoming, in "millions . . . rivalling in extent those of the wild 

 [passenger] pigeon," while at Hamilton, West Canada, it is a winter 

 visitor " sometimes appearing in vast flocks, and not seen again for 

 several years." 1 



Whence then do these birds come ? And what causes their 

 erratic emigrations ? 



The answer to the first question long remained a mystery, since 

 the breeding quarters of this bird which of necessity must be regarded 

 as the centre of dispersal of any species for years seemed impossible 

 of discovery, though sought for by ardent egg-collectors throughout 

 the Northern Hemisphere. Their zeal, however, was at length rewarded, 

 when John Wolley in 1856 was enabled to demonstrate beyond all 

 fear of contradiction, that, in so far as the Palaearctic region is con- 

 cerned, at any rate, this breeding territory lay in the wilds of Lapland. 

 In the pursuit of Ornithology none have shown more zeal, or more 

 indifference to hardship, than the egg-collector. But unhappily, with 

 some, this enthusiasm has become an overmastering passion, a mere 

 craze for amassing huge series, meaningless, senseless, so that to-day 

 to speak of one as an "egg-collector" is to brand him with a term of 



1 Coues, Birds of the North- West. U. S. Geol. Survey, Washington, 1874, p. 92. 



