142 
CEDAR-BIRD. 
condary feathers of the wings, are ornamented at the tips with 
small red oblong appendages, resembling red sealing-wax; these 
appear to be a prolongation of the shafts, and to be intended for 
preserving the ends, and consequently the vanes, of the quills 
from being broken and worn away, by the almost continual flut- 
tering of the bird among thick branches of the cedar. The feath- 
ers of those birds which are without these appendages are uni- 
formly found ragged on the edges; but smooth and perfect in 
those on whom the marks are full and numerous. These sin- 
gular marks have been usually considered as belonging to the 
male alone, from the circumstance, perhaps, of finding female 
birds without them. They are, however, common to both male 
and female. Six of the latter are now lying before me, each with 
large and numerous clusters of eggs, and having the waxen ap- 
pendages in full perfection. The young birds do not receive them 
until the second fall, when, in moulting time, they may be seen 
fully formed, as the feather is developed from its sheath. I have 
once or twice found a solitary one on the extremity of one of 
the tail feathers. The eye is of a dark blood colour; the legs and 
claws black; the inside of the mouth orange; gap wide; and the 
gullet capable of such distention as often to contain twelve or 
fifteen cedar berries, and serving as a kind of craw to prepare 
them for digestion. No wonder then that this gluttonous bird, 
with such a mass of food almost continually in his throat, should 
want both the inclination and powers for vocal melody, which 
would seem to belong to those only of less gross and voracious 
habits. The chief difference in the plumage of the male and fe- 
male consists in the dulness of the tints of the latter, the inferior 
appearance of the crest, and the narrowness of the yellow bar 
on the tip of the tail. 
Though I do not flatter myself with being able to remove that 
prejudice from the minds of foreigners, which has made them 
look on this bird, also, as a degenerate and not a distinct species 
from their own; yet they must allow that the change has been 
very great, very uniform, and universal, all over North Ameri- 
ca, where I have never heard that the European species has been 
