I 
BY THE WAYSIDE 
2] 
SCHOOL BRANCH DEPARTMENT 
Every Wisconsin School Branch is required to subscribe for at least one copy of BY THE WAYSIDE 
Letters to this department should be 
written on only one side of the page, should 
give name, age and address of the writer and 
should be mailed by the first of the month; Illi¬ 
nois writers sending to Miss Mary A. Hard¬ 
man, Academy of Sciences, Chicago, Ill., and 
Wisconsin writers to Mr. Roland E. Kremers, 
Madison, Wis. To each writer whose letter 
is published will be sent an illustrated leaf¬ 
let on some bird. For the best letter each 
month we will send a second leaflet. Pre¬ 
ference will be given to letters about the 
bird study for the month and to original 
observations. 
Any Wisconsin society may, by paying 
the express, have the use of the Gordon and 
Merrill Libraries of bird books by applying 
to Mr. Kremers. 
Wisconsin parties should apply to the 
University Extension Division, Madison, for 
colored bird slides. Illinois Schools may use, 
without expense, a library or a lecture with 
lantern slides, by applying to Miss Bunnel, 
Academy of Sciences, Chicago. 
The Bird of the Month. 
The Cedar waxwing. 
”1 saw a bird this morning, kind of 
chocolate brown, with a crest, and it 
looked ever so smooth and neat. I be¬ 
lieve I saw a little red on its wings, 
and it made just the faintest sort of a 
little peep. It was sitting on our 
mountain-ash tree, eating the berries.' 
That is a statement brought to me, 
and undoubtedly to many other bird 
students, as regularly as the year rolls 
round. Say that he is the most cul¬ 
tured of all birds we have, and you 
have described him exactly. In dress 
and in deportment, he is all that is 
genteel. Cultured he is also in his 
tastes for travel, not following blindly 
like one of Cook’s Touring Party, but 
choosing his own route and undoubt¬ 
edly thus seeing much that others miss. 
He is a worthy member of that exclu¬ 
sive family the Waxwings, of which 
there are only three species, one in 
Eastern Asia, and two (the Cedar and 
the Bohemian Waxwings) found both 
with us and in Europe. They are 
Northerners, though the one we are 
most familiar with goes often to the 
West Indies and Central America for 
the winter. 
Both our forms are easily told by the 
well-groomed appearance of their coat, 
by their crest, by the small red tips 
like sealing wax of some of the wing 
feathers, and by that faint, disheart¬ 
ened, whistle that seems to be about 
the only song they know. They be¬ 
long to the “singing birds," but none 
ever had less of a song. 
The Cedar Waxwing is our common 
form, as it is over most of our country, 
nesting as far south as the Carolines 
and certainly as far north as Atha¬ 
basca. It comes to us—yes, when does 
it come to us? When it is good and 
ready to come, is the nearest answer I 
can give. We may see it even in win¬ 
ter, if the weather be mild, and it has 
no set period of arrival in spring. 
Then we may not see any for a year 
or more. About its nesting it is never 
in a hurry—June, July or August, it 
is all the same. In some safe tree it 
builds a large home of twigs and bark, 
leaves and moss, and lays therein from 
three to five pale blue-gray eggs, 
spotted with brown and black. If you 
wish to know what happens when these 
hatch, find a copy of Professor Her¬ 
rick’s “Home Life of Wild Birds,” 
and you may read an extremely inter- 
esting story. 
The Cedarbird’s first cousin, the Bo¬ 
hemian Waxwing, is a larger being, 
and a more northern one. A V e seldom 
