WAX WINGS: CEDAR WAXWING 
593 
rower and duller.) Forehead and streak through eye, velvety black, narrowly 
bordered with white. Young: Duller, streaked with whitish, and with smaller crest. 
Comparisons. —(Sec Bohemian Waxwing, p. 591.) 
Range. —Breeds mainly in Transition and Upper Austral Zones from southern 
British Columbia, central Alberta, central Manitoba, northern Ontario, northwestern 
Quebec, and Nova Scotia south to North Carolina, Kansas, northern New Mex¬ 
ico (?), Arizona, and southern Oregon; winters in most of United States and south to 
Mexico, Cuba, and Panama. Recorded from southeastern Alaska in July. 
State Records. —There seems to be no certain record of the breeding of the 
Cedar Waxwing in New Mexico. A small flock was seen August 11, 1904, at 7,900 
feet on the Hondo (Bailey); and a flock June, 1853, at Fort Webster (Henry). All 
of these were probably wanderers rather than breeders, and this probability is made 
greater by the fact that there is no sure breeding record in the nearby parts of any 
of the neighboring States. At the most it is a rather rare bird in New Mexico, 
wintering and remaining until late in the spring, and returning early in the fall. 
It has been noted in the State at Arroyo Seco, 8,000 feet, February 2, 1904; Corona, 
October 23, 1902 (Gaut); Dog Spring, Grant County, May 31, 1892 (Meams); Ship- 
rock, May 27,1907 (Gilman); and Rinconada, May 1,1904 (Surber).—W. W. Cooke. 
Nest. —In bushes or low trees, a deep, bulky structure made of twigs, weed 
stems, grasses, and vegetable fibers, lined with leaves and fine rootlets. Eggs: 
3 to 6, pale bluish to purplish gray, sharply and usually thickly marked with blackish 
and paler or lilac shell spots, most thickly about the larger end. 
Food. —Nine-tenths vegetable matter, almost wholly wild fruits and seeds, 
as wild cherry, wild currant, chokecherry, and pokeberry; the one-tenth animal 
matter consisting mainly of insects, including grasshoppers, crickets, craneflies, 
lace-wings, butterflies, moths, bugs, bark-lice, and scale insects. The Waxwings are 
fond of leaf-eating beetles, and devour quantities of the Colorado potato beetle 
and the pernicious elm-leaf beetle (a flock of 30, it is estimated, will eat 90,000 
cankerworms a month). “They seem to do little injury to cultivated fruit except to 
the cherry crop, and most of this usually may be avoided by planting a goodly 
number of early mulberry trees when planting chcrries ,, (Forbush). 
General Habits. —The high-crested, exquisitely-tinted Waxwings, 
which wander about, except during the late nesting season, in close 
flocks, to light in some berry-bearing bush or tree—as the chokecherry, 
juniper, or mulberry—whispering softly in sibilant tones among them¬ 
selves, are occasionally met with in New Mexico. On the Hondo the 
small flock we saw was among the chokecherry bushes, and about 
Corona Mr. Gaut saw them feeding on the berries of the soft-leafed 
juniper (Juniperus scopiilorum ). 
It may seem a far cry from New Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean, 
but it is interesting to know that a young Waxwing in the fall migration 
once came on board an Atlantic liner at Lat. N. 41° 58', Long. W. 
59° 34', and spent the afternoon, coming within a yard of some of the 
passengers (Butler, A. W., 1926, p. 103). 
Additional Literature.—Forbush, E. H., Educational Leaflet 48, Nat. Assoc. 
Audubon Soc.— Herrick, F. II., Home Life of Wild Birds, 11, 17-18, 52-63, 106, 
118, 1901.— Hubbard, Mr. and Mrs. F. D., Bird-Lore, XXVI, 10-11, 1924 (X-ray 
