16 TEVE* A 0D UB ON CEB rU saa eee 
which grew directly on the edge of the road to see whether they 
might be the waxwings we had heard. 
As we sat looking from the car a pair of birds came into that 
tree, sat along side each other where we could see them clearly, and 
proceeded to perform the rite of which we had read and wondered 
about. One bird reached out and picked a cherry which it passed to 
the other. The second bird turned its head as though to pass the 
cherry on to a third, but, there being no third, it turned and re- 
passed the cherry to the first. The first also turned as though to pass 
it along and then passed it again to number two. This was repeated 
five or six times without the cherry having apparently been crushed 
when one of them finally ate it and a moment later both flew away. 
One of our great moments had come and gone. What a movie picture 
that would have made, but our only record of the performance is the 
one our memories give us. 
The question at once arose as to the cause or reason for this 
performance. Two suggestions as to this have been offered by George 
Gladden in his comments in “Birds of America,” as follows: 
“If birds have no conception of manners, how does it happen that 
half a dozen Cedar Waxwings, sitting close together on a limb— 
which they often do—will pass a cherry along from one to another, 
down to the end of the line and back again, none of the birds making 
the slightest attempt to eat even part of the fruit? This little episode 
has been witnessed and reported by more than one thoroughly re- 
sponsible observer of birds. What does it mean? If not politeness 
and generosity, then what? Mr. Forbush thinks the birds do it only 
when they are satiated; but how could he be sure of that condition? 
Obviously not unless he killed all of the birds and examined their 
stomachs, which, of course, nothing could induce him to do. It would 
be a sorry way to prove courtesy and kindness, and wouldn’t prove 
anything after all. For if the bird had no room for another cherry, 
why didn’t it simply drop the fruit instead of passing it along? Let 
‘the bird psychologists ponder these questions; for the bird-lover the 
answer is obvious. Besides he will have observed many other evi- 
dences of a gentle and affectionate disposition in these beautiful crea- 
tures.” : 
E. H. Forbush discounts this rather sentimental view with the 
statement that Cedar Waxwings are such gluttonous birds that they 
sometimes become so surfeited as to be unable to fly, and have been 
known to fall helpless on the ground. In one case they so stuffed 
themselves with over-ripe and fermenting fruit that they were quite 
obviously intoxicated, some of them tumbling to the ground and 
trying to run away when they could not fly. 
As between these ideas we are not in any position to decide, but 
the memory of the scene will remain with us for all our days as one 
of the most curious performances in our experience. 
Chicago. 
PRINTING PRODUCTS CORPORATION—CHICAGO 
