20 Fragments of Natural History. 
gazed upon with a momentary curiosity, and then cast under 
oot. 
In every community there are however some individuals who 
have a natural taste for matters of this kind. If they would 
improve the opportunities as they occur for making themselves — 
familiar with the rarer birds, and would communicate the results 
_ of their observations to the public through the medium of some 
suitable publication, any deficiency in the history of our Ameri- 
can birds would soon be supplied. 
Entertaining this view, I am induced to offer for the pages of 
the Journal of Science, the following extracts from my notes and 
memorandums, made during the last three years. 
A flock of Bohemian wax-chatterers, (Bombycilla garrula,) 
consisting of fifty or sixty individuals, were frequently seen in a 
marsh at the old mouth of the Cuyahoga river, near the city of 
Cleveland, during the month of March of the present year. 
They were usually engaged in feeding on the pulps and seeds of 
the swamp-rose, and as they were mistaken by the sportsmen for 
the common cherry bird, (B. Carolinensis,) they were permitted to 
pursue their occupation without interruption. | 
I procured a fine specimen, which is preserved in my cabinet ; 
another is in the cabinet of Prof. Ackley, of this city. 
We believe this to be the first instance in which this bird has 
been taken within the United States, or has been known to visit 
us in any considerable numbers ; though we learn from the ap- 
pendix to Nuttall’s Ornithology, and also from Peabody’s Report 
on the Birds of Massachusetts, that “ the younger Audubon once 
pursued an individual of this species in that state.” 
Nuttall says, “ the wax-chatterer, hitherto, in America, seen 
only in the vicinity of Athabasca river, near the regions of the 
Rocky Mountains in the month of March, is of common occur- 
rence as a passenger throughout the colder regions of the whole 
northern hemisphere. In spring and late in autumn, they visit 
northern Asia or Siberia, and eastern Europe in vast numbers, 
but elsewhere are only uncertain stragglers.” 
Their size, markings and habits, readily distinguish them from 
the cherry or cedar bird. Justice is by no means done to their 
colors and beauty of form, in the figure given of the species by 
Bonaparte in the third volume of his American Ornithology. 
