The food of the waxwing is varied both according to season and other conditions. Wild fruit, berries, and seeds form much of their food during the fall and winter months. Mr. A. W. Butler states that, "in winter nothing attracts them so much as the hack-berry (_Celtis occidentalis_). Some years, early in spring, they are found living upon red buds." The investigations of the food of this species by Professor F. E. L. Beal prove that the greater share of it consists of wild fruit or seeds with a very small allowance of cultivated fruits. Animal matter forms a relatively small proportion of the food, but this small proportion by no means indicates the insect-feeding habits of the birds. It might well be suspected that so varied a diet would enable the birds to accommodate themselves to almost any conditions, largely feeding upon the food which happens to be the most abundant at the time. Thus, an outbreak of any insect pest calls the waxwings in large flocks which destroy great numbers to the almost entire exclusion of fruit as a diet for the time. It cannot be denied that the waxwings do sometimes destroy not a little early fruit, calling down upon them righteous indignation; but at other times they more than make amends for the mischief done. Of the voice Mr. A. W. Butler says, "They have a peculiar lisping note, uttered in a monotone varying in pitch. As they sit among the branches of an early Richmond cherry tree in early June, the note seems to be inhaled, and reminds me of a small boy who, when eating juicy fruit, makes a noise by inhalation in endeavoring to prevent the loss of the juice and then exclaims, 'How good!' As the birds start to fly, each repeats the note three or four times. These notes develop into a song as the summer comes on; a lisping, peculiar song that tells that the flocks are resolving into pairs as the duties of the season press upon them." After the pairing season there is a great show of affection between the two birds, which often continues long after the nesting season has closed. THE PREACHER-BIRD. (Red-eyed Vireo.) JENNY TERRILL RUPRECHT. Listen near a grove of elms or maples and you will not fail to hear its song, a some what broken, rambling recitative, which no one has so well described as Wilson Flagg, who calls this bird the preacher, and interprets its notes as "_You see it! You know it! Do you hear me? Do you believe it?_"--_Chapman's Bird-Life._ Apostle of the grove across the way, Surpliced in color of the foliage, I list enchanted to thy sermon-lay, As if it were the wisdom of a sage; "_You see it! You know it! Do you hear me? Do you believe it?_" Ah! thou wouldst quicken memory to-day.