3052 Birds. 



regions of North America, seems to have neglected no opportunity of 

 investigating the habits of the animal creation, informs us that he one 

 day saw a flock of waxwings, consisting of three or four hundred, 

 alight in a grove of poplars, and all on one or two trees, making a loud 

 twittering noise. (' Fauna Boreali-Americana,' Birds, p. 238).* 



It will be remarkable if this beautiful bird shall appear, in the pre- 

 sent season, in the same unusual numbers as it did at this time last 

 year. Although there exists, no doubt, a sufficient and a propelling 

 cause why it should abandon its native fastnesses during particular 

 years to a greater extent than during others ; and why, in a great ma- 

 jority of years, it should not be seen in Britain at all ; it is, neverthe- 

 less, true, that the most observant and sagacious ornithologists have 

 hitherto been unable to obtain any satisfactory information on this 

 seemingly anomalous, but very interesting point. But be this as it 

 may, no one will deny that it is not a little consolatory to be able to 

 say that the appearance of a greater number of waxwings than ordi- 

 nary does not now alarm the nations of Europe, as it did in the days 

 of our comparatively unenlightened and superstitious forefathers, 

 when such an event was looked upon as the infallible harbinger of 

 public calamity, and the ominous herald of the demon of war. And 

 yet, as regards themselves, the waxwings visit our shores in the en- 

 lightened times in which we are so frequently told we live, with a far 

 greater certainty of death than when they were even denounced and 

 execrated as the immediate forerunners of supernatural wrath. No 

 sooner are they beheld, than every gun in the vicinity is pointed 

 against them ; and they are hunted from tree to tree, and from thicket 

 to thicket, till an end is put to their inoffensive existence ; and till 

 they dye with their blood the inhospitable soil, from which their in- 

 stincts were insufficient to keep them away. Why should this be the 

 case ; and why should not those individuals, in whose locality they 

 may chance to appear, find far more pleasure, and incomparably more 

 amusement and instruction from admiring their silky and radiant 

 plumes, while these are glowing all over with life and with health ; 

 and from studying those wonderful habits and movements, which their 

 Creator, who wishes them to be as happy in their way as he wishes 

 ourselves, has taught them unerringly to exhibit, than from looking at 



* He considers the front and the under tail-covers of the waxwing as affording an 

 example of the colour known to the ancients by the name of helvolus, or helveolus 

 (Pliny, lib. 14, cap. 2, 4). Of this colour, the component parts are said to be buff, 

 tile-red and chestnut-brown. 



