CHERRY BIRD. 297 
surroundings, and one by one they proceed to the chief business of their 
lives. They eat until they can eat no longer, and are hardly able to 
move. As Mr. Read says, they are “very polite, passing food to one 
another.” 
In the fall they feed on the berries of the gum tree and poke-berries ; 
_ in the winter on the berries of the mountain ash and red cedar. I have 
never seen them on the ground. With us they are less common in 
winter. 
The nest of the Cedar Bird is built on the horizontal branch of a tree, 
at varying distances from the ground. Sycamore trees furnish favorite 
sites, but they often breed in orchards. The nest is large, composed of 
twigs and vegetable fibres, and lined with grass. The eggs are usually 
five, grayish-blue, varying from a light slate to stone color, blotched with 
very dark brown and purplish. They measure about .85 by .65. While 
nesting the old birds are very silent. 
In regard to “sealing-wax” tips to secondary quills of birds of this 
genus, Dr. Coues (Birds of Col. Val., 452) says they “ have been subjected 
to chemical and microscopical examination by L. Stieda, and shown to be 
the enlarged, hardened, and peculiarly modified prolongation of the shaft 
itself of the feather, composed of central and peripheral substances, dif- 
fering in the shape of the pigment cells, which contain abundance of 
red and yellow coloring matter.” My own opinion has always been that 
these tips were both the end of the shaft and terminal lamine of the 
vane, which were agglutinated together by a deposit of red coloring mat- 
ter. These tips are sometimes found upon the tail-feathers of the Cedar 
Bird. In aspring male in high plumage before me, they are on all the 
feathers, not as well developed as on the secondaries, but the red coloring 
matter on the shaft forms a streak which extends nearly the width of 
the yellow tip of the tail-feathers, more distinct above than below. 
The terminal lamine project at the end as if the feather had been 
trimmed toa small triangular point. This triangle is red, and the lamine 
more or less adherent and stiff, though readily separated from each other 
by slight pressure. On most of the feathers there is a narrow red edging 
extending across the end of the feathers, and the under ee coverts are 
distinctly. red-tipped. 
The tips to the secondaries vary in number and development at differ- 
ent times. They are most numerous and highly developed in spring, in 
the latter part of summer often entirely wanting. They may be present 
in young birds in first plumage. 
