152 
SINGING BIRDS. 
BOHEMIAN \Vy\XWING. 
AmpEUS G.4RRULUS. 
Char. Prevailing color cinnamon brown or fawn color, darker on 
front head and cheeks, changing to ashy on rump; chin and line across 
foiehead and through the eyes, rich black; wings and tail slaty; tail 
tipped with yellow ; irrimaries tipped with white, secondaries with appen- 
dages like red sealing-wa.x. Head with long pointed crest. Length 
to inches. Easily distinguished from the Cedar Bird by its larger size 
and darker color. 
Nest. In a tree, a bulky structure of twigs and roots, lined with 
feathers. 
3 “ 5 » bluish white spotted with lilac and brown ; i.oo X 0.70. 
Ihe VVaxwing, of which stragglers are occasionally seen in 
Nova Scotia, Massachusetts, Long Island, and the vicinity of 
Philadelphia, first observed in America in the vicinity of the 
Athabasca River, near the region of the Rocky Mountains, in 
the month of March, is of common occurrence as a passenger 
throughout the colder regions of the whole northern hemi- 
sphere. Like our Cedar Birds, they associate in numerous 
flocks, pairing only for the breeding season ; after which the 
young and old give way to their gregarious habits, and collec- 
ting in numerous companies, they perform extensive journeys, 
and are extremely remarkable for their great and irregular 
wanderings. The circumstances of incubation in this species 
are wholly unknown. It is supposed that they retire to the 
remote regions to breed ; yet in Norway they are only birds of 
passage, and it has been conjectured that they pass the sum- 
mer in the elevated table-land of Central Asia. Wherever they 
dwell at this season, it is certain that in spring and late autumn 
they visit northern Asia or Siberia and eastern Europe in vast 
numbers, but are elsewhere only uncertain stragglers, whose ap- 
pearance, at different times, has been looked upon as ominous 
of some disaster by the credulous and ignorant. 
The Waxen Chatterers, like our common Cedar Birds, ap- 
pear destitute of song, and only lisp to each other their usual 
low, reiterated call of ze ze re, which becomes more audible 
