WAXWINGS: BOHEMIAN WAXWING 
591 
climbed the peak again, only suggestions of the flight song were heard, 
the old birds being fully occupied feeding young. 
In the fall migration, from September 27 to October 3, 1904, we 
saw several flocks on the mud flats bordering the Burford Lakes, and 
they would sometimes rise and fly off over the sagebrush hills. 
WAXWINGS: Family Bombycillidae 
The bill of the Waxwings is well adapted to their food—insects 
and fruit—being short, broad, flat, plainly notched, and with widely 
cleft gape (the nostrils overarched by a scale); much of their insect 
food is caught in air and their wings are long and pointed, with ten 
primaries, but the first spurious (so short as almost to escape notice); 
the tail is short, and the feet, used only for perching, are rather weak. 
The head is conspicuously crested and the plumage is peculiarly soft, 
smooth, and silky. 
BOHEMIAN WAXWING: Bombycflla garrula pallidiceps (Reichenow) 
Description. — Length: About 7.4-8.7, wing 4.4-4.G, tail 2.7-2.9. Bill small, 
rather swollen, slightly hooked and notched at tip; loral feathers dense, soft, velvet¬ 
like, almost concealing nostrils; head with a long crest of soft, blended feathers, the 
plumage in general soft and blended. Adults: Body , including high crest , soft fawn 
color , deeper anteriorly, fading to grayish on abdomen, sides, and flanks, and nearly 
pure gray on rump and upper tail coverts; tail and wings blackish, tail tipped with 
yellow , primaries tipped with white or yellow , the secondaries broadly tipped with 
white, the shafts usually prolonged into flattened, tear-shaped, red wax-like append¬ 
ages; forehead, cheeks , and under tail coverts deep brown; chin (usually), lores, and eye 
streak extending back under crest, velvety black; bill black terminally, bluish gray 
basally. (In imperfect plumage, the wax-like appendages of secondaries are absent.) 
Young: Much duller than adults, the underparts streaked with brown or gray on a 
whitish ground. 
Comparisons. —The large Bohemian can be distinguished from the Cedar 
Waxwing by greater size, usually black instead of brown chin, under tail coverts 
brown instead of white, and primaries tipped with white or yellow instead of gray. 
(See p. 592.) 
Range. —Boreal Zones of Northern Hemisphere. In North America breeds 
from western Alaska, northern Mackenzie, and northeastern Manitoba south to 
(probably Montana), Idaho, and Washington; winters irregularly to California, 
Arizona (rarely), New Mexico, Kansas, Indiana, and east to Connecticut; casual in 
Arizona. 
State Records. —The first record for the Bohemian Waxwing in New Mexico 
is given by Mr. Ligon, who was fortunate enough to encounter a number of the 
rare birds on November 19, 1926, when climbing the steep northeast slope of Gold 
Hill in Taos County, at about 11,500 feet, where snow lay five or six inches deep in 
the timber. Three small flocks were seen, of nine, six, and eight individuals. The 
nine birds of the first flock were, he says, “nervously moving about, feeding, some¬ 
what on the order of bluebirds, lighting on roots of the fallen dead timber or dry 
standing snags, making short excursions to the snow or wind-swept spots of ground. 
Before I could get near them they moved off over the ridge, but after reaching the 
summit of the ridge I built a fire on the leeward side of a small spruce and was 
