PERCHING BIRDS. 153 
violence of the Kingbird, and play bo-peep with him 
around the rail, while the latter, highly irritated, made 
every attempt, as he swept from side to side, to strike 
him, but in vain.” The Phebe-bird, which utters its 
pe-wee so continuously, is one of this family. There are 
eight species of Fly-catchers called Greenlets, which are 
familiar to this country. Their principal colors are vari- 
ous shades of green. One of them, from using bits of 
newspaper in making its nest, is sometimes called Poli- 
tician. 
253. The species of the family of Chatterers, or Wax- 
wings, are few. The Bohemian Waxwing, Fig. 124, is 
diffused over Europe, and ap- 
-pears in England, so that its 
local name, accidentally given 
it, is not appropriate. With 
its silken tuft of feathers on its 
head, and the general silken 
appearance of its plumage, it 
is a beautiful bird, but its song 
is weak, as is that of all the 
_ Chatterers. There is a corre- 
sponding species pervading 
North and a part of South 
America, commonly called the 
Cedar-bird, or Cherry-bird. At 
the approach of winter the Ce- 
dar-birds leave the far north 
in companies of from twenty 
to a hundred, and go as far south as the confines of the 
equator. They reappear in the Northern and Eastern 
States in April, before the cherries and mulberries, their 
favorite fruits, ripen. Although they eat these fruits, they 
more than repay us by devouring quantities of canker- 
worms and other destructive insects. The Waxwings 
have their name from a peculiar ornament on their 
wings. Some of the feathers have appendages resem- 
G 2 
Fig. 124.—Bohemian Waxwing. 
