THE WAXEN CHATTERER. 325 
birds. It is also known by the name of the BOHEMIAN CHATTERER, the 
latter name being singularly inappropriate, as the bird is quite as rare in 
Bohemia as in Engand. 
It is a very gregarious bird, assembling in very large flocks, and congre- 
gating so closely together that great numbers have been killed at a single 
discharge of a gun. 
The long, flat, scarlet appendages to the wings are usually confined to the 
secondaries and tertiaries, at whose extremities they dangle as if they had 
been formed separately, and fastened to the feathers as an after thought. 
Indeed they so precisely resemble red sealing-wax, that anyone on seeing 
the bird for the first time would probably suppose that a trick had been 
played upon him by some one who desired to tax his credulity to a very great 
extent. 
BOHEMIAN WAXWING, OR WAXEN CHATTERER.—(Ampelis garrula.) 
To this country it only comes in the winter months, although there has 
been an example of its appearance as early as August. 
In its plumage the Bohemian Waxwing is a very pretty and striking bird, 
being as notable for the silken softness of its feathers as for its pleasingly 
blended colours and the remarkable appendage from which it derives its 
popular name. The colouring of the bird is very varied, but may briefly be 
described as follows. The top of the head and crest are a light soft brown, 
warming into ruddy chestnut on the forehead. A well-defined band of black 
passes over the upper base of the beak, and runs round the back of the head, 
developing the eyes on each side, and there is a patch of the same jetty hue 
on the chin. The general colour of the bird is grey-brown, the primary and 
secondary feathers of the wings and tail are black, tipped with yellow, the 
primary wing-coverts are tipped with white, and the tertiaries are purplish 
