3o8 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



are attracted by the fruit of such cultivated trees as those mentioned above. 

 Whenever our Parkman's apple bears generously, it is sure to be visited and 

 quickly despoiled of its tiny fruit by the ever greedy Waxwings. I remember 

 when they were found regularly and in immense flocks, in February and March, 

 in the country immediately to the westward of Mount Auburn where large beds 

 of asparagus and extensive woods of Virginia junipers supplied them, and the no 

 less abundant Robins, with food and shelter during the coldest weather and the 

 deepest snows. 



In the earlier days there was but little public sentiment in favor of the 

 protection of our smaller birds, and both Cedarbirds and Robins were often 

 killed for the table. They were especially persecuted in winter, in the beautiful 

 evergreen woods just mentioned, where some of the local gunners were accus- 

 tomed to dispose of their victims on the spot, after broiling them over a fire of 

 dead pine branches kindled in some sheltered nook. I am glad to say that 

 neither I nor any of my personal friends ever participated in these barbarous 

 feasts, but we occasionally witnessed them from a distance and often found the 

 embers of the fires, surrounded by quantities of feathers and other remains, 

 where the birds had been plucked and eaten. 



Cedarbirds are rather adroit at catching flying insects, which they pursue 

 and snap up much in the same way as do the true Flycatchers. They indulge 

 most freely in this habit in late summer, about the margins of ponds and streams. 

 I used to see them engaged in it in July and August at Fresh Pond. During 

 calm, cloudy weather they sometimes collected, to the number of fifty or more, 

 in one or another of the coves, perching on icehouses and on the branches of 

 trees that overhung the water. From these points of vantage they made inces- 

 sant and evidently very destructive forays among the dipterous insects that 

 hovered in swarms over the pond. Birds which I shot on such occasions often 

 had not only their crops, but also their gullets and throats, filled to overflowing 

 with insects. 



When no insects are on wing Cedarbirds sometimes practise the art of fly- 

 catching on inanimate but rapidly moving objects. Thus on March i, i866, I 

 saw the members of a large flock engaged in chasing and capturing whirling 

 snowflakes, at which they launched out in quick succession from the upper 

 branches of a tall elm. This happened in Watertown. Probably the birds 

 were only amusing themselves, although they may also have enjoyed slaking 

 their thirst with snow fresh from the clouds. 



Various writers have asserted that the Cedar Waxwing has no vocal utter- 

 ances other than the thin, hissing calls which are familiar to everyone. I have 

 heard it give a succession of loud, full notes, rather mellow in quality and not 

 unlike some of those which Tree Swallows use in spring. On several occasions 



