Long -tailed Titmouse. 173 



lience deriving the specific name vagans attributed to it by some 

 authors following in a long line, and keeping up a shrill and 

 incessant cry of Twit twit, and anon hanging in an inverted 

 position from the ends of the small twigs while in search of 

 insect food. Montagu relates that he once observed a brood of 

 twelve on a July evening as it became dusk, apparently very 

 restless, when, on the utterance of a single note by one, and as 

 instantaneously repeated by the whole, they assembled in a 

 moment and huddled on a branch so close together as to appear 

 like a ball of down.* The specific name seems in all languages 

 to refer to its long tail, as caudatus, and our own ' Long-tailed 

 Tit.' In France it is Mesange a longue queue; in Germany, 

 .Schwanzmeise ; in Italy, Codibugnolo ; in Holland, Staartmees ; 

 and in Sweden, Stjert Mes. It is sometimes called provincially 

 1 Bottle Tit ' and ' Bottle Tom ' from the shape of its nest, and in 

 this county is generally styled ' Huckmuck,' a truly Wiltshire 

 word, the derivation of which I cannot fathom. 



AMPELID/E (WAXWINGS). 



Of the family of Fruit-eaters we have but one single example 

 occurring in England ; their characteristics are short bill but 

 wide gape, enabling them to swallow whole the large berries 

 and fruits on which they feed ; and short legs and feet formed 

 for perching, as they are never seen on the ground. The mean- 

 ing of the family name Ampelidce is really 'fruit-eaters,' or, 

 literally, birds which frequent a//^/^, ' the vine.' The single 

 species visiting us is styled the 



64. BOHEMIAN WAXWING (Bombycilla garrula). 



Called also the ' Silktail,' and ' Chatterer ;' it is a winter 

 visitant, and though it occasionally conies in some numbers, it is 

 by no means regular or periodical in its arrival ; an interval of 

 several years often elapsing between its visits. It is recorded by 

 Ray to have appeared in this country in large flocks in the 

 winter of 1685 ; Gilbert White records its visit in 1767 ; Bewick 

 ' Ornithological Dictionary,' Supplement. 



