B O M B Y C I L L A. 



543 



this tree in a preceding article, wo may notice further, 

 that it is found in South America, in Africa, on the 

 Indian peninsula, and all over the same degrees of 

 latitude to the eastward as far as China. The silky 

 substance contained in the capsules, has been tried 

 by both spinners and hatters for their respective pur- 

 poses, but it wants tenacity of fibre, and is therefore 

 useless for the fabrication of any durable, material. 

 Thin mattresses are however stuffed with it in India, 

 and for which the silk cotton is so far eligible, that it 

 is exceedingly light. Notwithstanding the tree is 

 generally found between the tropics, the leaves are 

 deciduous, that is, falling after the sect's arc ripe, and 

 renewed immediately after the flowers come forth in 

 the next season. The haves are compound; some 

 species, as the B. c<i!>tt, have five leaflets, others 

 seven, all proceeding from the point of the common 

 foot-stalk. This last species presents one of the most 

 magnificent spectacles when in flower that possibly 

 can be conceived. This tree is plentiful in the south- 

 ern provinces of China ; it grows like, and very 

 much resembles, the largest walnut trees of England. 

 In the month of March, and before the leaves ap- 

 pear, the tree comes into flower ; every twig of the 

 widely extended head bears a large tulip-like scarlet 

 flower, remaining in perfection for a week or two 

 the first dowers on the points of the shoots being suc- 

 ceeded by others from the sides. As a proof of the 

 plenty of these trees in the neighbourhood of Canton, 

 most of the coffins required for the mortality of the 

 vast population of that city, are made of the slabs of 

 the bombax, or silk-cotton tree as it is called by the 

 English, and moc-inain by the Chinese. These coffins 

 are soon made ; a butt is chosen corresponding to 

 the size of the defunct ; four slabs are sawed oft' at 

 ritiht angles, the square centre is used for other pur- 

 poses, and the four slabs are fastened together again 

 to form the rude coffin. The timber is light, and of 

 inferior quality. The genus is nearly allied to the 

 Eriudriidnm of Decundolle. 



BOMBYCILLA (Waxwing). A very peculiar 

 genus of birds, belonging to the omnivorous division 

 of the order Passercs, in Cuvier's arrangement, nearly 

 allied to the CHATTERERS (ampfla'), and also to the 

 ROLLERS (coracias), but having sufficient distinct and 

 peculiar characters for entitling them to stand in the 

 systematic arrangement as a separate genus. 



The generic characters are the bill strong, short, 

 rather compressed, but with a slight bend downwards 

 at the tip of the upper mandible. The tomia mar- 

 gined but without anv notch. The nostrils at the 

 base of the bill, of an oval shape, and without any 

 valvular or protecting membrane, but in part covered 

 with feathers projecting to the front. The feet have 

 three toes before and one behind ; the outer toe 

 joined to the middle one at its base ; and the tarsus 

 as long as the middle toe. The foot is thus much 

 more of a perching than a walking foot. The wings 

 are long and pointed ; the first and second quills being 

 the longest. The most peculiar character of the bird, 

 and that which has procured it the name of wajcwhtii, 

 is the way in which the ends of the secondary quills 

 are terminated. These have the tips of their shafts 

 extended into little discs of soft horny substance, 

 which appears as if that part of each feather had been 

 dipped in sealing wax; but of what use these little 

 balancers are to the birds in their flight, or in any 

 other part of their economy, is not known. But this 

 loading of the points of the feathers must render the 



wing a little stiller against an oblique strain at that 

 part; and this may be necessary, as the birds are 

 very discursive in their habits. 



As there are only two species of the genus, the 

 Bohemian waxwing (B. gmriila) and the Carolina 

 waxwing, (B. Carolinicnsis], we shall combine what 

 general observations we have to make on the habits 

 and economy of the genus with our notice of the first 

 of these species. 



BOHEMIAN WAX-WING (B. garrula). Neither of 

 these epithets is very applicable. The birds do 

 appear in Bohemia, but they appear there only as 

 visitors; and they might with equal propriety be 

 named after any of the countries near the Baltic, and 

 more especially after Sweden, where they are found 

 in greater numbers, perhaps, than in any other part of 

 Europe. As little is the word garrula descriptive of 

 them, for they are rather silent than otherwise ; and 

 the name appears to be continued from that of chatterer 

 at the time that this genus was confounded with the 

 true chatterers (Colinga}, 



These birds are never long in one place ; but they 

 are discursive rather than migrant, and upon the con- 

 tinent they do not resort annually to the same places, 

 or at the same times of the year. Of their nesting- 

 places or resorts where they breed not much is known ; 

 and they are accordingly one of the genera which the 

 continental naturalists are very often in the habit of 

 " sending to Siberia," to construct their nests and 

 perform their incubations. That many birds resort to 

 Siberia, and also to the northern parts of Russia, as 

 well as to the Scandinavian peninsula, during the 

 summer months, is not only probable, but certain; 

 for the summer there is proportionally as warm as the 

 winter is cold, and it sets in so late that by the time 

 there is temperature sufficient to entice a bird to the 

 country, there is light sufficient for it to find its food 

 during the greater part, and even the whole of the 

 twenty-four hours. 



In these northern places, which are cither not in- 

 habited at all or very thinly so, and which, being 

 Hat, are humid in the yearly part of the summer, 

 abound much more in the food of birds than places 

 further to the south, where the climate is upon the 

 whole milder, and the seasons much more uniform. 

 Insects and the smaller ground animals, which hy- 

 bernate in the earth below the reach of the frost, 

 which penetrates to a much smaller depth in propor- 

 tion than when the earth is not protected by a cover- 

 ing of snow, are not only very numerous in those 

 parts, but there is a more ample provision of food for 

 birds than one would be apt to suppose. Even the 

 mammalia, such as the bears (see BEAR), which re- 

 main in these high latitudes during the winter, have a 

 tendency to accumulate more fat than the races, or 

 even than individuals of the very same race which 

 winter in warmer climates so admirable are the con- 

 stitutional tendencies of all creatures tempered to that 

 state of the elements under which they have to exist. 



But this law of adaptation in nature runs through 

 all those productions in which the vital or the grow- 

 ing action has to be preserved through a dormant 

 period of severity, whether that severity arises from 

 cold, as in the climates more immediately under con- 

 sideration, or from drought* as in tropical countries. 

 In these northern latitdes, the trees make more per- 

 fect and also what we may, without impropriety, call 

 "fatter" buds than they do in temperate climates; 

 and they evidently do so because the germ or more 



