CEDAR BIRD. 73 
The European species is very nearly twice the cubic bulk of ours; 
has the whole lower parts of a uniform dark vinous bay; the tips of 
the wings streaked with lateral bars of yellow; the nostrils, covered 
with bristles ;* the feathers on the chin, loose and tufted; the wings, 
black; and the markings of white and black on the sides of the head 
different from the American, which is as follows: —Length, seven 
inches, extent eleven inches; head, néck, breast, upper part of the 
back and wing-coverts, a dark fawn color, darkest on the back, and 
brightest on the front; head, ornamented with a high, pointed, almost ' 
upright, crest; line from the nostril over the eye to the hind head, 
velvety black, bordered above with a fine line of white, and another 
line of white passes from the lower mandible; chin, black, gradually 
brightening into fawn color, the feathers there lying extremely close; 
bill, black; upper mandible nearly triangular at the base, without 
bristles, short, rounding at the point, where it is deeply notched ; the 
lower, scolloped at the tip, and turning up; tongue, as in the rest of 
the genus, broad, thin, cartilaginous, and lacerated at the end; belly, 
yellow; vent, white; wings, deep slate, except the two secondaries 
next the body, whose exterior vanes are of a fawn color, and interior 
ones, white ; forming two whitish stripes there, which are very con- 
spicuous ; rump and tail-coverts, pale light blue ; tail, the same, grad- 
ually deepening into black, and tipped for half an inch with rich yel- 
low. Six or seven, and sometimes the whole nine, secondary feathers 
of the wings are ornamented at the tips with small, red, oblong appen- 
dages, resembling red sealing-wax ; these appear to be a prolongation 
of the shafts, and to be intended for preserving the ends, and conse- 
quently the vanes, of the quills, from being broken and worn away by 
the almost continual fluttering of the bird among thick branches of 
the cedar. The feathers of those birds, which are without these ap- 
pendages, are uniformly found ragged on the edges, but smooth and 
perfect in those on whom the marks are full and numerous. These 
singular marks have been usually considered as belonging to the male 
alone, from the circumstance, perhaps, of finding female birds without 
them. They are, however, common to both male and female. Six of 
the latter are now lying before me, each with large and numerous 
clusters of eggs, and having the waxen appendages in full perfection. 
The young birds do not receive them until the second fall, when, in 
moulting time, they may be seen fully formed, as the feather is devel- 
oped from its sheath. I have once or twice found a solitary one on 
the extremity of one of the tail-feathers. The eye is of a dark blood 
color; the legs and claws, black; the inside of the mouth, orange; 
Asia alone. The fallacy of this opinion was decided by the researches of several 
ornithologists, and latterly confirmed, by the discovery in America of the B. gar- 
rulus itself, the description of which will form a part of Vol. IIL. (of the London 
edition. 
The ee Bombycilla, of Brisson is generally adopted for these two birds, and 
will now also contain a third very beautiful and nearly allied species, discovered in 
Japan by the enterprising, but unfortunate, naturalist Seibold, and figured in the 
Planches Coloriées of M. 'Temminck, under the name of B.phenicoptera. It may 
be remarked, that the last wants the waxlike appendages to the wings and tail; at 
Ieast so they are represented in M. Temminck’s plate ; but our own species some- 
tmes wants them also. — Ep. 
* Turton. 
