Relation of Summer Birds to Western Adirondack Forest 453 



He also says ('14, p. 364; that it has gradually increased in numbers 

 since the clearing of the country. 



Cedar Waxwing; Cedar-bird. Bomby cilia cedrorum Vieill. 

 Length 7.2. Head and throat snuff-brown, becoming grayish on back 

 and breast ; head crested ; under parts yellowish ; end of tail yellow ; quills 

 of wings and tail often tipped with red sealing-wax-like points. 



The Cedar Waxwing frequents all aspects of the wooded regions 

 except the virgin forest, but is usually attracted more by shrubbery 

 than by large trees. It uses the tall trees principally as stations 

 from which to sally out and capture flying insects, and in this it 

 rivals the true flycatchers in ability. The Cedar-bird is noted for 

 its taste for fruits and berries, and wherever it finds these in the 

 woods, burns and clearings, there it establishes itself for the breed- 

 ing season. This breadth of fare gives the Waxwing a wide range 

 of habitat and in the Adirondack region it has merely to settle down 

 in the midst of plenty. 



It is a late breeder. A pair at Barber Point selected a site in a 

 small beech on the campus, choosing a horizontal fork screened by 

 foliage above and below. They began to construct the nest on the 

 first day of July, both birds taking part in the work, the male accom- 

 panying the female in her trips for nest material. His share of the 

 building operations was to carry the short slender twigs used in the 

 framework of the nest, while the female brought the moss and 

 lichens for its thick walls. The female did all the work in shaping 

 ■ up the walls and in weaving the twigs and moss together, and as 

 she sat in the structure at this labor the male usually stood on the 

 rim of the nest. On July 10 this nest was complete and on August 

 9 the young birds left it, measuring a period of forty days. Sev- 

 eral other nests were made on the campus, and one was in an open 

 part of the bog, on a horizontal branch of a small scraggy spruce. 

 This nest was composed chiefly of moss or lichen, similar in construc- 

 tion to many that I had examined in Montana, and was the only nest 

 of this species that I ever found in a spruce. One other nest of the 

 Cedar Waxwing deserves mention, for it was in a willow sapling 

 admirably concealed in a mixed clump of willow and aspen, and 

 was a good illustration of the value of the aspen in the Burn asso- 

 ciation in its relation to the nesting habits of birds. 



The Cedar Waxwings begin to make their appearance in the 

 woods and clearings with the flowering of the berry bushes. They 

 associate in small flocks at this time, and frequently a troop of them 

 will be startled from a small area of blackberry bushes, where they 

 have been eating the blossoms or embryo fruits. They feed eagerly 

 on stamens and pistils of the blackberry blooms, and from this 

 time they find the woods and berry patches a storehouse of wild- 

 wood supplies. No bird of the Great North Woods has a keener 

 appetite for wild fruits than the Cedar Waxwing, and it has in the 

 A.dirondacks an unlimited orchard of nature's choicest undomesti- 

 cated berries. 



