CEDAR WAXW1NQ. 



tJte Bitslt, says of the call-note: " Formerly I gave the 

 Tanager credit for only one song, the one which sug- 

 gests the Robin laboring under an attack of hoarseness; 

 but I have discovered that he himself regards his chip- 

 rlii-i / as of equal value." Possibly there are many who 

 do not esteem the song of the Tanager very highly. To 

 tell the truth, the gorgeousness of the little fellow's cos- 

 tume eclipses his fame as a musician; but we must travel 

 far to hear another voice with such a perfectly delicious 

 reed like quality, and it would tax the ingenuity of an 

 accomplished whistler to imitate it with any approach to 

 a creditable semblance of its singular beauty. 



Family Ampelidce. WAXWINGS. 



Tliis small family includes but one species, the Cedar- 

 bird, which may be justly called common in the eastern 

 United States. It is devoid of any musical ability, but is 

 otherwise very interesting. 



Cedar Wax- This Cedar Waxwing, or Cedarbird, as 

 he is sometimes called, i<j most certainly a 

 " tailor-made " bird if ever there was one 

 cedrorum which deserved that significant appella- 



L. 7. 15 inches tion. His feathers are a close fit, his style 

 April loth, or refined and irreproachable; his orderly 

 appearance is in sharp contrast with that 

 characteristically dishevelled morsel of bird-life which 

 w<> call the Chickadee, and his dignified carriage is an 

 unexceptionable model for other members of the feath- 

 ered tribe. * His colors (and conduct as well) are quiet 

 almost to the point of being Quakerish; upper parts a 

 soft tone of light brown graded to gray on wings and 

 tail; head conspicuously crested; region about the eye 

 and beneath the bill black; tail tipped with a yellow 

 band; secondaries, and sometimes tail, in the yellow 

 part, tipped with scarlet spots resembling red sealing- 

 wax. Under parts like the back, but paling to a yellow- 



*Mr. N'<1 Dearborn, in his Birds of Durham, calls them *' the tip- 

 tops of feathered aristocracy." 



147 



