The potentiality for wax tips is possibly inherited according to Mendelian ratio. _Bombycilla japonica_ is of interest in that the adults, at least, seldom have the waxy appendages. Nevertheless, in the specimens observed, the entire distal ends of the feathers normally possessing the tips in other species are suffused with red color. This may be the original condition of all waxwings, or perhaps, instead, this species is in a transitional stage in the development of the tips. Swarth (1922:277) says concerning the probable derivation of the wax tips in _B. garrula_ (and in _B. cedrorum_): "the ornamentation, in fact, may well have begun with the coloring of the shaft, spreading later over adjoining feather barbs. The last stage would have been the coalescing of the barbs, forming the waxlike scale as is now seen. Various steps of this hypothetical development are supplied in the wing and tail feathers of different birds of this series." _Bombycilla japonica_ thus may be close to the ancestral condition in the waxwing stock in the development of the waxy appendage. The rectrices of all three species of waxwings seldom possess the wax tips, unless the secondaries have the maximum number of tips. In these individuals, the pigment seems to "spill over" onto the tail feathers. Eight is the maximum number of tips found on the secondaries. Rectrices with wax tips are more frequently found in _B. garrula_, and only occasionally in _B. cedrorum_. The pigment in the tip of the tail of _B. japonica_ is red rather than yellow as it is in the other two species, and some individuals of the Japanese Waxwing show a slight amount of coalescence of wax in the tail feathers as well as in the secondaries. If the tips were present in all members of the two species, it could be postulated, in line with recent investigational work by Tinbergen (1947), that the tips are in the nature of species "releasers," facilitating species recognition. Such recognition is now regarded as of prime importance in the formation of species. It is improbable that sex recognition may be aided, as there is no evidence to indicate that the tips are found predominantly in either sex. The wax tips are not limited to the adult birds in the species _B. garrula_. Swarth (_op. cit._) mentions the capture of several young Bohemian Waxwings, and describes them as "possessing all the distinctive markings of the most highly developed adult." This includes wax appendages, and several citations are given (Wolley 1857, Gould 1862) to indicate that this is the rule rather than the exception, not only for the American subspecies _pallidiceps_, but at least for the European subspecies _garrula_ as well. On the other hand, the young of _B. cedrorum_ lack the wax tips, at least as far as available data show.