Waxwing
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Waxwing. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a family of perching birds. Two species are well known in the United States and Canada. The cedar-bird or cedar-waxwing is a common American bird. It nests from Kentucky northward. It is a beautiful bird with a graceful crest. Its general color is ashy brown, with a purple tint on the head. Its throat is black; the tail feathers are tipped with yellow. The wings bear a bar of white, at the crossing of which each feather has a peculiar appendage, looking like a bead of vermilion sealing-wax. In the northern woods the cedar birds are to be found usually in the thick foliage of evergreen trees. They feed on berries. The nest is placed in a tree from five to twenty feet above the ground. There are usually from four to six pale blue, thickly speckled eggs. The cedar-bird is a trifle over seven inches in length. The Bohemian waxwing ranges farther westward. It is about eight inches in length. It is an exquisite dresser. The general color of the upper parts is a rich grayish brown. The under parts vary from gray to chestnut. It has a jaunty topknot. Its wing feathers are barred with white and end in small red sealingwax-like tips. "I think that the Bohemian waxwing," says William T. Horna-day, "when alive and in perfect plumage, is one of the most exquisite perching birds I know. It is not gorgeous or resplendent; but in dainty prettiness of form, immaculateness of plumage, and delicate refinement in color-scheme combined, it has few equals." Cedar waxwing
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
an insessorial bird belonging to the dentirostral section of the order. It derives WAXWING its name from the appendages attached to the secondary and tertiary quill feathers of the wings, which have the appearance of red sealing-wax. The Bohemian waxwing sometimes visits England. An American waxwing is the cedar bird.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The plumage described by Aiton's in 1910 is still exactly what a birder sees, red sealing-wax wing tips and all, and both species remain common; the chief casualty is Collier's 1921 vocabulary, since "insessorial" and "dentirostral" were artificial groupings that modern classification abandoned, and the waxwings now sit in a small family, Bombycillidae, of just three species — cedar, Bohemian and the Japanese waxwing of East Asia, unmentioned here. Aiton's claim that the Bohemian waxwing "ranges farther westward" understates it: the bird is circumpolar and famously irruptive, appearing in large flocks far south of its usual range in some winters and scarcely at all in others, which is why Collier's could say only that it "sometimes visits England." One genuinely new thing has appeared on the bird itself: since the mid-20th century some cedar waxwings in the eastern United States have grown orange rather than yellow tail bands, traced to pigment in the berries of introduced Asian honeysuckles.
Written for this edition, 2026.