166 THE WAXWING 



tips to the wings are smaller, and throughout the series are placed at 

 the extreme tip of the vane, that is to say, the inner vane of the middle 

 members of the secondaries does not run along the appendages as 

 in B. garrulus : further, it is a smaller bird and has white under tail- 

 coverts. The Japanese species has no wax-like appendages, but a 

 spot of dull rose colour on the outer web at the tip of each secondary, 

 the major-coverts are marked with rose colour, and a bar of vivid rose, 

 or crimson, across the tip of the tail replaces the lemon-yellow bar of 

 B. garrulus. There are other points of difference, but these are not of 

 sufficient importance to be enumerated here. The substitution of red 

 for yellow is not surprising; indeed wherever yellow occurs in any 

 species, we may always expect to find one or more nearly related 

 forms showing red in place thereof. 



The waxwings appear to form an isolated group of species whose 

 nearest allies are yet to be found, for attempts which have been made 

 to determine the systematic position of these birds have so far, it must 

 be admitted, ended in failure. Further investigation will, we believe, 

 show them to be distant relatives of the Flycatchers. And this is 

 supported by the fact that they pursue and capture winged insects 

 after the fashion of flycatchers. 1 



The evidence, so far as it goes, seems to point to an American 

 origin for this species, the small Bomby cilia cedrorum representing the 

 parent stock, while Bombycilla garrulus on the one hand, and the 

 Japanese B. Japonicus on the other, represent what we may call 

 mutations of this parent stock. 



It has been suggested on more than one occasion that the wax- 

 wing, if afforded protection during these spasmodic visits to our Islands, 

 might be induced to breed and, it is to be inferred, thereby induced 

 to remain with us. But the realisation of such hopes, even under the 

 most vigorous protection, is highly improbable. Similar hopes, it may 

 be remembered, were cherished in the case of Pallas's sand-grouse, 

 and they came to nothing. 



1 Macoun, Cat. Canadian Birds, 1904, p. 557. 



