The Bohemian Waxwing 
suspect that our fowls rather than our features have favored our 
adoption. 
In these birds and in the Barn Swallows, the well known twittering 
and creaking notes of Swallows most nearly approach the dignity of song. 
Indeed, Mr. Rathbun contends that the song heard at close quarters is a 
really creditable affair, varied, vivacious, and musical. 
The Violet-greens are less hardy and venturesome than the Tree 
Swallows, although they do winter sparingly as far north as the Imperial 
Valley. In the spring migrations the pioneers enter the State from the 
South about the middle of February, but the species is nowhere common 
before the middle of March. Last year’s nesting site becomes at once the 
spring rendezvous for the returned birds, and to see them twittering about 
in the upper branches of a dead tree riddled by woodpecker holes, or to 
see a Swallow enter a hole with a feather in its beak, you would imagine 
them to be early nesters; but these are only happy anticipations. Egg- 
laying never occurs before late May, and middle June is a more nearly 
average date. 
As the nesting season draws to a close, the Violet-green Swallow 
yields in fullest measure to the social instinct, and the young are mus¬ 
tered in great happy companies. Whether instruction is meted out on 
such occasions, we do not know; but evidently good fellowship promotes 
good manners. Even the hobble-de-hoy stage is believed to be less acute 
and painful in the case of these heavenly children. 
No. 109 
Bohemian Waxwing 
A. O. U. No. 618. Bombycilla garrula pallidiceps Reichenow. 
Synonyms.— Northern Waxwing. Greater Waxwing. 
Description. — Adults: A conspicuous crest; body plumage soft, grayish brown 
or drab, shading by insensible degrees between the several parts; back darker passing 
into bright russet on forehead and crown, and through dark ash of rump and upper 
tail-coverts into black of tail; tips of tail-feathers abruptly yellow (wax-yellow); 
breast with a vinaceous cast, passing into light russet of cheeks; a narrow frontal 
line passing through eye, and a short throat-patch velvety black; belly narrowly and 
centrally yellowish white; under tail-coverts deep cinnamon-rufous (russet); wing 
blackish ash, and tips of the primary coverts and tips of the secondaries on outer webs, 
white; tips of primaries on outer webs bright yellow (lemon chrome to wax-yellow), 
whitening outwardly; the shafts of the secondaries produced into peculiar flattened 
red “sealing wax” tips. Bill and feet black. Length 203.2 (8.00); wing 114 (4.49); 
tail 63 (2.48); bill 11.4 (.45). 
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