waxwing

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of several birds of the genus Bombycilla, having crested heads, grayish-brown plumage, and waxy red tips on the wing feathers.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. An oscine passerine bird of the genus Ampelis (or Bombycilia), family Ampelidæ: so called because the secondary quills of the wings, and sometimes other feathers of the wings or tail, are tipped with small red horny appendages resembling sealing-wax. There are three species—the Bohemian waxwing or chatterer, A. garrulus, of the northern hemisphere generally, breeding in high latitudes, and migrating southward irregularly, sometimes in flocks of vast extent; the red-winged Japanese waxwing, A. phœnicoptera; and the smaller Carolina waxwing, cedar-bird, cedar-lark, cherry-bird, etc., of North America, A. cedrorum, the prib chatterer of Latham, 1785. The sealing-wax tips are the enlarged, hardened, and peculiarly modified prolongation of the shaft of the feather, composed of central and peripheral sub stances differing in the shape of the pigment-cells, which contain abundance of red and yellow coloring matter. Their use is unknown.

Wiktionary

1. n. Any of several songbirds of the genus Bombycilla, having crested heads, and red tips to the wings.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Zoöl.) Any one of several species of small birds of the genus Ampelis, in which some of the secondary quills are usually tipped with small horny ornaments resembling red sealing wax. The Bohemian waxwing (see under bohemian) and the cedar bird are examples. Called also waxbird.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. brown velvety-plumaged songbirds of the northern hemisphere having crested heads and red waxy wing tips