CEDAR BIRD. IO g 



These facts I have myself been an eyewitness to. The female, 

 if disturbed, darts from the nest in silence to a considerable 

 distance ; no notes of wailing or lamentation are heard from 

 either parent, nor are they even seen, notwithstanding you are 

 in the tree examining the nest and young. These nests are 

 less frequently found than many others, owing, not only to the 

 comparatively few numbers of the birds, but to the remark- 

 able muteness of the species. The season of love, which makes 

 almost every other small bird musical, has no such effect on 

 them, for they continue, at that interesting period, as silent as 

 before. 



This species is also found in Canada, where it is called 

 Becollet, probably, as Dr Latham supposes, from the colour 

 and appearance of its crest resembling the hood of an order of 

 friars of that denomination. It has also been met with by 

 several of our voyagers on the northwest coast of America, 

 and appears to have an extensive range. 



Almost all the ornithologists of Europe persist in considering 

 this bird as a variety of the European chatterer {A. garrulus), 

 with what justice or propriety a mere comparison of the two 

 will determine* 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 ;f the feathers 



* The small American species, figured by our author, was by many 

 considered as only the American variety of that which was thought to 

 belong to Europe and Asia alone. The fallacy of this ojnnion was de- 

 cided by the researches of several ornithologists, and latterly confirmed 

 by the discovery in America of the B. garrulus itself, the description of 

 which will form part of Vol. III. 



The genus 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, natu- 

 ralist Seibold, and figured in the Planches Coloriees of M. Temminck, 

 under the name of B. pkosnicoptera. It may be remarked, that the last 

 wants the waxlike appendages to the wings and tail, at least so they are 

 represented in M. Temminck's plate ; but our own species sometimes 

 wants them also. — Ed. t Turton. 



