20 FragQiients of Natural ECistory. 



gazed npon with a momentary curiosity, and then cast under 

 foot. 



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 

 famiUar with the rarer birds, and would communicate the results 

 of their observations to the public through the medium of some 

 suitable pubhcation, 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, [Bomhy cilia, 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. 



