

THE WAXWING. 

 J 



{A mpelis garrula.) 



THIS is an arctic visitor, of which arrivals 

 are noticed nearly every winter in the 

 British Islands, while sometimes there is a 

 regular invasion of Waxwings, just as there is, 

 occasionally, a large- westward immigration of 

 Nutcrackers or Pallas' Sand Grouse. The Wax- 

 wing is a bird of very delicate coloration, and 

 gains its English name from the peculiar tips to 

 the quills and tail-feathers, which have pointed 

 drops, as it were, of red sealing-wax at the ends. 

 The older the bird, the more numerous are these 

 wax-like tips. Young birds do not have any, and 



the wax-like ornaments vary in number even in 



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