206 THE WAXWING 



by the action of the waves, are, or were in my boyhood, 

 popularly reputed to be balls from the guns of Elliot 

 and Thurot. 



L 



The autumn and winter of 1921-22 will be remem- 

 Tfce bered in British ornithology for the great 



warvring number of wax wings (Ampelis garrulus) 

 which visited our island. Not since 1849-50, when five 

 hundred and eighty-six specimens were observed and 

 recorded in The Zoologist, has this beautiful bird been 

 reported from so many districts. Four of them had 

 the grace to make a brief too brief sojourn in the 

 woods of Monreith. 



Of all migratory species that alight in Great Britain, 

 the waxwing is the most irregular; indeed, it is as 

 capricious and erratic in its choice of a nesting-place 

 as it is in its winter wandering. Although in some 

 seasons it may be seen in Central Europe and in North 

 America in countless flocks, actually it was not until 

 1856 that nests and eggs were first discovered by the 

 late Mr. John Wolley, who organised a systematic 

 search for them in Lapland. Two years later, in 1858, 

 Mr. Dresser found a small breeding colony on an island 

 in the Baltic ; since which nests have been certified on 

 the Yukon and Anderson rivers in North America. 

 But the establishment of a populous nesting company 

 in any locality one year is no guarantee that there will 

 be a single brood reared there in the following season. 

 Most migratory birds exhibit singular fidelity in 

 returning year after year to the same place to nest ; not 



