oblong appendage, in colour and substance resembling scarlet
sealing-wax, tlie outer tertial also occasionally bears a like
appendage; these appendages are merely expanded and
coloured horny prolongations of the shafts of the feathers
beyond their webs;* tail-quills smoke-grey at the base, black
towards the end, and tipped with yellow, the shafts being
sometimes slightly tinged with red where the webs are
yellow, and some of them occasionally, though rarely, tipped
with scarlet wax-like appendages, similar to those of the wings
but much smaller; the chin and throat deep, glossy black;
the base of the lower mandible clothed with white feathers
passing into light bay on the sides of the throat, below which
both bay and black are blended, into pale brocoli-brown, which
prevails on the breast, becoming greyish-brown on the flanks
and abdomen; lower tail-coverts bright bay; axillaries and
lower wing-coverts light ash-grey; quills beneath, shining
g rey: legs, toes and claws black.
The whole length is rather more than eight inches.
Fiom the carpal joint to the tip of the wing, four inches
and a half.
The female so closely resembles the male that the sexes
cannot be unfailingly distinguished externally, but her
colours are usually less bright, and in general she has fewer
of the scarlet appendages on the wings and never, it is believed,
any on the tail.
Wolley thus describes the nestling obtained by him
A young bird caught on the 5th of August, as it fluttered
from the nest, had a general resemblance to the adult,
though all the colours were more dull. The wax-like ends
to the wing-feathers, the yellow tip to the tail, the black
will, Ti 6 f.trUCtUf e+0f tbef aPP««kges has been carefully described and compared
in °tlier Mrds by Herr H- A n d e a n ((Efvers.
Yet- Ak' F° /handl 1859> PP- 219-231, pi. a .). Then- number in ¿ e Waj/
than 0Sn T e “ m“ , SteVens0n suSSests- constitutional rigour
- t h o u g h t snec-' T SeW°though a specimen is rarely seen mw i^thou ^t any . F“rom> ^five to 1se»v e«n- /ist wthoe
erage number m the former and from four to six in the latter They vary
S . , “ ” **"■» * » - « « . generally b r i g h S
patch between the eye and the beak are all there, whilst the
rich mahogany of the under tail-coverts is of a quieter
brown; the blooming vinous colour of the head and back
has not yet emerged from a homely neutral, and the crest is
but just indicated by the longish feathers of the crown.
The most marked difference between the adult and the
young is in the throat and under-surface generally. There
is at present scarcely a trace of the deep black patch of the
chin, and the delicate tint of the general under-surface of
the adult is replaced by mottled neutral and white. This
upon examination is found to owe its appearance to those
longer webs, which arising towards the root of each feather,
extend as far outwards as the webs which arise nearer its
tip, being very pale or white, and thus relieving, on both
sides, the last-mentioned darker webs.”
The Ampelidce are regarded by many systematists as allied
to the Shrikes and Flycatchers. Others consider them to
bear affinity to the Swallows. The place here assigned to
the family is manifestly inappropriate, but the Editor being
doubtful as to its true position leaves it as it stood in former
editions. Some authorities have taken as the type of the
Linnaean genus Ampelis a South-American bird, which belongs
to a very distinct and not at all nearly-related family—
the Cotingidce, and call the genus which includes the present
species Bombycilla. There can be no doubt of this treatment
being wrong. The name Ampelis was that under
which Aldrovandus described the bird in 1599, complaining
of Gresner, who had, in 1555, called it Garrulus Boliemicus
—the Bohemian Jay or Chatterer, and justly remarking that
it had nothing to do with birds of the Pie-kind, that it did
not chatter nor was it known to be peculiar to Bohemia.
Linnaeus, with whom all scientific nomenclature begins, kept
what seemed good to him in both these names, using that of
Aldrovandus for the genus and Gesner’s first word for the
species—the general likeness between a Jay and a Waxwing
being sufficiently obvious; but Ampelis not being quoted for
any other species, this is clearly the type of the Linnaean
genus. Bombycilla, says Prof. Sundevall, may be traced to