358 BOHEMIAN WAXWING. 
the snares prepared for them by more artful and selfish beings. 
Hence they are stigmatised as stupid, and, as they keep gene- 
rally close together, many are easily killed at once by a single 
discharge of a gun. They always alight on trees, hopping 
awkwardly on the ground. Their flight is very rapid: when 
taking wing, they utter a note resembling the syllables, 22, 27, 
rt, but are generally silent, notwithstanding the name that 
has been given them. ‘They are, however, said to have a sweet 
and agreeable song in the time of breeding, though at others 
it is a mere whistle. The place of breeding, as we have inti- 
mated, is not known with any certainty, though they are said 
to build in high northern latitudes, preferring mountainous 
districts, and laying in the clefts of rocks, which, however, 
judging from analogy, we cannot believe. 
What can be the cause of their leaving their unknown 
abodes, of their wide migrations and extraordinary irruptions, 
it is very difficult to determine. That they are not compelled 
to them by cold is well proved. Are they to be ascribed to 
necessity from excessive multiplication, as is the case with the 
small quadrupeds called lemmings, and even with man him- 
self in a savage state or in over-populous countries ? or shall 
we suppose that they are forced by local penury to seek else- 
where the food they cannot be supplied with at home? Much 
light may be thrown on the subject by carefully observing 
their habits and migrations in America. 
The Bohemian chatterer being so well known, we shall here 
only give a description of our best American specimen, which 
is a female shot on the 20th March 1825, on the Athabasca 
river, near the Rocky Mountains. ‘The sexes hardly differ in 
plumage. 
Length, eight and a half inches ; extent, fifteen ; bill, three- 
quarters of an inch long, black, paler at the base of the under 
mandible ; irides, reddish, often quite red ; nostrils, entirely 
uncovered. From the base of the ridge of the bill arises, on 
each side, a velvety black line, bordering the forehead, and 
spreading on the ophthalmic region, and surrounding almost 


