NPPF Commentary Lines 181-182, P. 163

[Vincent A. Maeder]

Mr. Kinbote's commentary addresses the last two lines of the third
stanza of Canto Two.  The time is Mr. Shade's 61st birthday and he
observes Waxwings berry pecking and a cicada singing (the commentary
mistakenly notes cicada as plural rather than the singular of the poem).
This calls back the initial image of the poem where a waxwing knocks
itself out in full flight against the window pane.  Apparently, the
waxwings around the Shade house have become a bit more careful after
watching one of their freathren fall from the false sky.

This also brings back lines 131-132.  In that commentary, Mr. Kinbote
deflects "mirrorplay" and "mirage shimmer" but rather the doom of
Kinbote's life dealing with the incoming Mr. Gradus.  As for the cicada,
Mr. Kinbote points to the triumphant song at lines 236-244.  Commentary
to line 238 on p. 1 where Mr. Kinbote relates Mr. Shade's passion for
"curious natural objects" which Mr. Kinbote dismisses out of hand as
merely an obstacle to what he and Mr. Shade should be really discussing,
i.e., Mr. Kinbote.  Anyway, we will address the symbology of the cicada
at line 238 (assuming Mr. VN has allowed us to peck any out of the
phrase without getting caught in the amber of Mr. Nabokov's prose (cf.
commentary to line 172, p. 155.

"Waxwings are a group of passerine [perching songbirds] birds
characterized by soft silky plumage and unique colored tips to some of
the wing feathers. These look like sealing wax, and give the group its
name. These are arboreal birds of northern forests. They live on insects
in summer and berries in winter. They are not true long-distance
migrants, but move south from their summer range in winter. In poor
berry years, huge numbers can erupt well beyond their normal range."
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waxwing  A possible type, the Cedar
Waxwing, is shown here: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedar_Waxwing  The
Cedar Waxwing is a resident of southern Canada and northern USA forests.
It is a berry eater.  

As for cicadas, "A cicada is any of several insects of the order
Homoptera with small eyes wide apart on the head and transparent
well-veined wings. Male cicadas have loud noisemakers called "tymbals"
on their sides. They modulate their noise by wiggling their abdomens
toward and away from the tree that they are on. The best-known genus is
Magicicada, the so-called "seventeen-year locust" (not a locust at all;
locusts belong to Orthoptera) or periodical cicada. These cicadas spend
thirteen or seventeen years in the ground, then emerge. Periodical
cicadas are grouped into thirty broods, based on the year they emerge.
Broods I-XVII are seventeen-year cicadas; Broods XVIII-XXX are
thirteen-year cicadas. Some broods are not known to exist, but they are
retained in the numbering scheme for convenience. Brood IX emerged in
2003. The next thirteen-year brood to emerge will be Brood XIX in 2011."
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada