WAXWING. 3 



AMPELIS GAERULUS. 



WAXWING. 



(Plate 11.) 



Tnrdus Bombycilla bohemica, Briss. Orn. ii. p. 333 (1760). 



Ampelis gareulus, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 297 (1766) ; et auctorum plurimorum— 



Bonaparte, Temminch, (Keyserling Sr Blasius), Begland, Salvadori, Baird, Ridg- 



way, Dresser, Newton, &c. 

 Bombyciphora poliocoelia, Meyer, Vog. Liv- u. Esthl. p. 104 (1815). 

 Bombycivora garrula (Linn.), Temm. Man. d'Orn. p. 77 (1815). 

 Bombycilla garrula [Linn.), VieiU. N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. xvi. p. 523 (1817). 

 Parus bombycilla, Pall. Zoogr. Rosso-Asiat. i. p. 548 (1826). 



This charming and interesting hird may be regarded as an irregular 

 winter visitor to Great Britain, having been met with in almost every 

 county, in some years in considerable numbers. It was first made kno'iTn 

 as a British bird by Lister in the ' Philosophical Transactions ' (1685^ 

 no. 75. p. 1161, fig. 9), from specimens shot at York in January 1681. 

 Prom this early date down to the present day the Waxwing has occurred 

 almost yearly in some parts of Great Britain. Among the years when it 

 appeared in extraordinary numbers may be cited the winters of 1830-31, 

 1834-35, 1849-50, and 1866-67. This latter will long be remembered by 

 British ornithologists as one of the great Waxwing seasons. The whole 

 of 1866 (the year of the cattle plague) was wet, the mild winter at each 

 end being scarcely distinguishable from the cold summer between. On 

 New-Year's day frost and heavy snow set in. Early in November great 

 numbers of the Bohemian Waxwiag made their appearance. The largest 

 flocks were seen in Norfolk ; but north of that county many birds were 

 shot at Scarborough, Newcastle, Berwick, up to Aberdeen and Inverness, 

 and to the south they were obtained as far as Dover and Rye. 



It is of far more frequent occurrence in the eastern counties than in 

 the midland and western; this is doubtless because the birds are so 

 eagerly sought after and shot upon their arrival on our eastern coasts that 

 comparatively few succeed in reaching the more distant parts of the king- 

 dom. In Scotland the Waxwiag is almost as well known as it is in 

 England as an uncertain and irregular winter guest. It has not been 

 obtained in the Outer Hebrides, but has occurred on Skye and the Orkney, 

 Shetland, and Faroe Islands. In Ireland, as might be expected, it is of 

 much less frequent occurrence, most probably for the reasons above cited. 



The Waxwing is almost a circumpolar bird, breeding in the pine-regions 

 of both hemispheres at or near the Arctic circle. It is common, though 

 very local, in Lapland ; and most of the eggs of this bird in collections have 



b3 



