. The American natural history : a foundation of useful knowledge of the higher animals of North America . Natural history. THE WAX WINGS AND SWALLOAVS 193. BOHEMIAN WAXWING. end of each secondary feather gleams like a ruby. No picture of this bird ever can fairly portray its beauties. The Cedar Waxwing or Cedar Bird1 of the eastern United States is but a fair understudy of its more robust and also more beautiful brother of the Northwest and the far North. Any one can instantly identify one of these birds by its jaunty top-knot, and the little drops of vermilion wax on the tips of its secon- d
. The American natural history : a foundation of useful knowledge of the higher animals of North America . Natural history. THE WAX WINGS AND SWALLOAVS 193. BOHEMIAN WAXWING. end of each secondary feather gleams like a ruby. No picture of this bird ever can fairly portray its beauties. The Cedar Waxwing or Cedar Bird1 of the eastern United States is but a fair understudy of its more robust and also more beautiful brother of the Northwest and the far North. Any one can instantly identify one of these birds by its jaunty top-knot, and the little drops of vermilion wax on the tips of its secon- daries, eight on each side. THE SWALLOW FAMILY. Hirundinidae. The members of the Swallow Family are among the most sociable of our feathered friends, and also the most conspicuous. The Purple Martin2 loves the little house atop of a tall pole, which the country boy who loves birds takes pleasure in erecting for it. Forty years ago, thousands of the prairie farms of the Middle West bore these tall monuments to the love of wild birds which is born in every right-minded boy! And how gracefully the glossy-black Martins used to circle, and swoop, and gyrate about them. Sometimes the blue- birds took possession of the martin-boxes, and then George or John was troubled; for having designed and erected on high a dwelling espe- cially for the Martins, it seemed morally wrong that they should be forestalled, or crowded out. And then came Ahab, the English sparrow, a homely, quarrelsome, low-minded and utterly uninteresting little wretch, a gutter-rat among birds. Unless coerced with a shot-gun, he steals the nesting-boxes of all other small birds, driv- ing before him the Martins, bluebirds, and many others who used to love our company. In the North the Purple Martin does not seem to thrive away from the haunts of man, and I be- lieve their great decrease in number has been due almust wholly to the English sparrow. It is really a bird of the South, but there was a time when it was common
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