Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds 
Closely associated with the sand martin is the Rough- winged 
Swallow (Stelgidopteryx serripennis), not to be distinguished 
from its companion on the wing, but easily recognized by its 
dull-gray throat and the absence of the brown breast-band when 
seen at close range. 
Cedar Bird 
( Ampelis cedrorum) Wax wing family 
Called also: CEDAR WAXWING; CHERRY-BIRD; CANADA 
ROBIN; RECOLLET 
Length — 7 to 8 inches. About one-fifth smaller than the robin. 
Male — Upper parts rich grayish brown, with plum-colored tints 
showing through the brown on crest, throat, breast, wings, 
and tail. A velvety-black line on forehead runs through the 
eye and back of crest. Chin black; crest conspicuous; breast 
lighter than the back, and shading into yellow underneath. 
Wings have quill-shafts of secondaries elongated, and with 
brilliant vermilion tips like drops of sealing-wax, rarely seen 
on tail quills, which have yellow bands across the end. 
Female — With duller plumage, smaller crest, and narrower tail- 
band. 
Range — North America, from northern British provinces to Cen- 
tral America in winter. 
Migrations— A roving resident, without fixed seasons for migrat- 
ing. 
As the cedar birds travel about in great flocks that quickly 
exhaust their special food in a neighborhood, they necessarily 
lead a nomadic life — here to-day, gone to-morrow — and, like the 
Arabs, they “silently steal away.” It is surprising how very 
little noise so great a company of these birds make at any time. 
That is because they are singularly gentle and refined; soft of 
voice, as they are of color, their plumage suggesting a fine Japan- 
ese water-color painting on silk, with its beautiful sheen and 
exquisitely blended tints. 
One listens in vain for a song; only a lisping “Twee-twee-ge," 
or “a dreary whisper,” as Minot calls their low-toned commu- 
nications with each other, reaches our ears from their high perches 
in the cedar trees, where they sit, almost motionless hours at a 
time, digesting the enormous quantities of juniper and whortle 
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