THE WAXWING 165 



tip of the feather to form what is known as the J-shaped mark 

 in distinction from the earlier I-shaped pattern. Finally, by a further 

 extension of the line along the inner web the J- becomes converted into 

 the " V-shaped " pattern characteristic of the adult, both male and 

 female. In the closed wing, in the fully adult bird, the primaries now 

 come to be marked with a yellow stripe fringed, as it were, by a series 

 of widely spaced oblique white lines, which have been described as 

 forming a ladder-shaped pattern. 



It is a very singular fact that, while the plumage as a whole under- 

 goes a series of progressive changes from the immature to the adult 

 bird, the wax-tips which seem to give the finishing touch to that 

 plumage should be developed in the callow nestling. 



In regard to the nestling, all that we know we owe to Mr. W. H. 

 St. Quintin, from young hatched in his aviaries. Some time ago he 

 kindly sent me two specimens, ten days old, for the British Museum, 

 with the following notes on the coloration of the mouth. "There 

 was," he writes, "a patch of violet-blue on each side of the lower 

 mandible, and the same above, the remainder of the interior lining of 

 the mouth was of a brilliant deep cherry-red, and the tongue was of 

 a port-wine colour. The effect was startling when the young bird 

 gaped." 



We may assume that since the sexes are alike in the adults, and 

 from the fact that the young have already assumed many of the adult 

 characters, that the species is entering upon the final phase of its 

 evolution when both adult and young wear the same resplendent 

 livery. And in this connection we may compare our waxwing with its 

 near allies, the cedar-bird, Bombycilla cedrorum of North and Central 

 America, wintering in Cuba and Jamaica, and the Japanese waxwing, B. 

 Japonicus of Eastern Siberia, wintering in Japan and Northern China. 



Our waxwing, B. garrulus, is conspicuously the most beautiful of 

 the three, for while all are of the same general ground-colour, the 

 American cedar-bird lacks the yellow and white in the primaries, and 

 the white in the primary coverts and secondaries, while the " wax " 



