546 



BOMBYCILLA. 



The wings and tails of those birds, when spread 

 out, have a very tine appearance, from the contrast of 

 deep black, pure white and bright yellow which they 

 display ; and the richness is farther increased by the 

 very peculiar appendages, which are quite solid and 

 shining, and unlike any thing that forms part of the 

 feathers of any other bird. The whole plumage is 

 indeed remarkable for its velvety texture, and the 

 glossless purity of its colours ; and though the birds 

 visit us but seldom, and at inclement seasons, when 

 they do make their appearance there are very few 

 of our birds, whether native or visitant, that display 

 so much beauty ; and therefore it is highly desirable 

 that something more of their manners were known. 



Wild and erratic as the wax-wings are in a state 

 of nature, they are tamed without much difficulty ; 

 and they appear to be of a mild and gentle disposition. 

 But although they are passive under the captivity 

 of the c;tge, their nature cannot bear up against a 

 restraint so cruelly contrary to their native habits ; 

 and they very soon fall Victims to the senseless cupi- 

 dity of their gaolers. The sufferings of most birds 

 in that state should plead powerfully with all who 

 can feel for animal suffering, for the abolition of a 

 custom which indicts pain upon a very beautiful and 

 interesting race of creatures, without having even 

 the consideration of pecuniary profit to plead in its 

 defence. 



AMERICAN WAX- WING (Bombycilla Americana). 

 There is much difference in size and colour, and no 

 inconsiderable difference of habit, between this bird 

 and the wax-wing of the old continent ; but it has 

 the external characteristic upon which the name is 

 founded, namely, the enlarged discs of a substance in 

 colour and gloss resembling red sealing-wax, at the 

 ends of the shafts of the secondary quills. Besides, 

 though the habits of the bird are different, we must 

 bear in mind that there are great differences between 



American Waxwing. 



the country which it inhabits, and that which is inha- 

 bited by the other. On the old or eastern continent 

 the coniferae which have pulpy or succulent cones, 

 at least which have them so much so as to come 

 under the denomination of berries, are few and thinly 

 scattered. They are only, or chiefly, the common 

 yew and the common juniper, the first of which is no 

 where very abundant, and the second is merely a 

 shrub ; so that the autumnal feeding of the wax- 

 wings is in a great measure confined to the berries of 

 the vacciniums and other lowly shrubs of the extreme 

 north. The birds depart at that season into the 

 swampy wilds where these are produced ; and as 



here is not there much to tempt the foot of ordinary 

 jnterprise to visit such places, and as the places an? 

 difficult and even dangerous, the birds remain in 

 jndisturbed possession ; and neither the time nor 

 he mode of their nidification is known. It is 

 ndeed by inference from what is known of the 

 American species only, that we can arrive at even a 

 guess at the general economy of the European wax- 

 A'ings, though they sometimes present themselves to 

 us in considerable number, and though the flights of 

 them in Scandinavia are probably to the full as 

 numerous as those of any other European birds. 

 From what is known of the American wax-wings, we 

 may conclude that the European ones breed late in 

 the year, after the summer solstice, and when the 

 berries on the northern morasses are beginning to 

 ripen. And we have some collateral proofs, or pre- 

 sumptions, that such must be the case in birds which 

 visit nearly the same localities in the breeding time, 

 and in others which reside more permanently in the 

 neighbourhood. Turnstones, and various other shore 

 birds, which linger with us till the season is far 

 advanced, breed in great numbers on the islands 

 along the coast of Norway and Lapland, and though 

 it is not proved that these are the identical individuals 

 which linger with us, yet it is probable that they are, 

 as they have not hitherto been found breeding in 

 any nearer locality. The cross-bills again are said to 

 breed in the polar forests in the winter, in that depth 

 of the season when both earth and tree have a mantle 

 of snow, and the birds are sheltered from the air and 

 concealed from observation. The time of the year 

 in which cross-bills appear as migrants in the south 

 favours this theory ; which is farther confirmed by the 

 fact that all birds pair at that season when food is 

 most abundant for themselves and their young. 



It is in the American forests and the American 

 wax-wings that we have the most satisfactory analo- 

 gies ; and though these are analogies of difference, 

 not of similarity, they are not on that account less 

 efficient for the discovery of the truth, for an analogy 

 of contrast is often as good as one of coincidence, and 

 sometimes better. Now, the evergreen coniferae of 

 America, with pulpy cones, or berries, extend through 

 all the middle latitudes of that continent, that is, 

 from near the confines of Canada, where they inos- 

 culate with the pine forests, following the swamps, 

 while the pines are on the dry barrens (so called, 

 because grass does not grow under pines), to the 

 northern confines of the Floridas, where they begin 

 to give place to the deciduous taxodium. These berry- 

 bearing coniferae are popularly called " cedars, " 

 but they are not; they are junipers, only having the 

 habit o'f tall and spiry trees, and from this habit 

 forming perhaps more closely covered forests in the 

 swamps than are to be found in any other part of the 

 world. On the first settlement by European colonists, 

 these cedar swamps occupied a great breadth of the 

 country eastward to the shores of the Atlantic, but 

 they have since been nearly extirpated in the whole 

 range between the Apalachian ridge and the sea, 

 with perhaps somewhat more zeal than wisdom, as 

 building-timber begins to be scarce and costly even in 

 that land of former forests. On the west side of the 

 mountains those trees are, however, very abundant 

 still, and as they bear a vast multitude of berries, 

 the number of birds which find their food upon them, 

 when these berries are in season, is beyond all pre- 

 cedent which we have on this side the Atlantic. 



