Birds & Nature Magazine 



11 



The Bird in the Tailor-Made Gown 



A STUDY IN POLITENESS 



IF we were to accuse any bird of wear- 

 ing a tailor-made gown, it would be 

 this trim, dainty waxwing. The 

 modest, unruffled beauty of the 

 plumage makes it a general favorite. Can 

 you imagine a softer or prettier combina- 

 tion of browns? How tastefully its sober 

 tones are picked out here and there by 

 brilliant bits of color! The scarlet tips 

 of the wing feathers, the yellow edging of 

 the tail, the touch of white under the eye 

 and the black bar through it. Could old 

 Polonius, in Hamlet, have hit off better 

 the dress of the waxwing than he did the 

 attire to be preferred by his son Laertes? 

 ^^ Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy ; 

 Yet, not expressed in fancy; rich, not 

 gaudy." 



The conspicuous crest of the waxwing, 

 slightly raised in the picture, together 

 with the black and white about the eye, 

 give him an animated, wide awake appear- 

 ance, yet he is not noisy nor active nor 

 quarrelsome. On the contrary, he is a 

 genteel bird, as quiet, moderate and well- 

 behayed as he is well dressed. Occasion- 

 ally they seem to overdo the "after you, 

 my dear Alfonso" act as is shown by the 

 following observation narrated by Mabel 

 Osgood Wright in Birdcraft. 



"Last May a flock of fifty or more 

 lodged for a whole morning in a half-dead 

 ash tree near the house, so that seated at eas:^ 

 I could focus my glass carefully, and watch 

 them at leisure. They were as solemn as 

 so many demure Quakers sitting stiffly in 

 rows ; once in a while they shifted about, 

 and seemed to do a great deal of apolo- 

 gizing for fancied jostlings. Their move- 

 ments interested me greatly, until finally, 

 to my surprise, I saw an illustration of 

 the old story of their extreme politeness 

 in passing food to one another, which I 

 had always regarded as a pretty bit of 

 fiction. A stout, green worm (for they 

 eat animal as well as vegetable food) was 

 passed up and down a row of eight birds ; 

 once, twice it went the rounds, until half 

 way on its third trip it became a wreck 



and dropped to the ground, so that no one 

 enjoyed it." 



The waxwings live in flocks except during 

 the breeding season. They live chiefly on 

 wild fruits. In winter they are most 

 commonly seen in the mountain-ash trees 

 feeding on the berries. They are fond of 

 the buds of the elm and often the walk 

 under a feeding flock is sprinkled with the 

 bud-scales that they have rejected. The 

 young are fed on insects, during the breed- 

 ing season ; therefore, the waxwings are 

 valuable assistants on the farm as bug-ex- 

 terminators. They are expert fly-catchers. 

 Taking up a position on some command- 

 ing limb or tree-stub, they dart ofi into 

 the air after a passing insect, returning to 

 the same perch time after time, after the 

 fashion of the pewee and phoebe. 



The waxwings know as well as the 

 farmer when the early cherries are fit to 

 eat and they help themselves so freely that 

 they have earned the unfortunate name of 

 cherry-bird and with it the farmers' ill- 

 will. The name is unfortunate because 

 people who know him by that name only 

 would naturally think him to be a bad 

 bird, whereas his habit of eating injurious 

 insects makes him one of the desirable 

 birds. 



As the waxwings do not seriously harm 

 the late cherries, but prefer the wild ones 

 and other wild fruits then in season, it 

 would seem that they take the early ones 

 not so much from choice as from necessity. 

 Perhaps they feel about the wild cherry as 

 Mr. Henry van Dyke feels about "That 

 concentrated essence of all the pungent 

 sweetness of the wildwcod" — the wild 

 strawberry; "Doubtless God could have 

 made a better berry, but doubtless God 

 never did." 



Sitting in a tree-top one after another 

 whistles his faint little "Nay, nay," that 

 may be heard hardly more than two hun- 

 dred feet. Suddenly the flock takes wing 

 and they send forth, almost in chorus, a 

 rapid succession of, "Yea, yea, yeas." — Wis- 

 consin School Bulletin. 



