648 Sparrows taking Possession of Swallows' Nests. 



his views, we must admit the especial creation of several 

 Adams and Eves, to account for the various modifications of 

 the human subject ; some races being of one shape and some 

 of another ; some being of one colour and some of another. 

 What naturalist imagines the existence of several species of 

 dogs, because dogs, in different countries, which call for dif- 

 ferent exertions on their parts, have become modified ? I be- 

 lieve that any habit or structure is liable to, or capable of, 

 modification according to locality, with its peculiar climate, 

 soil, produce, &c. 1 believe, too, that on the scarcity or 

 abundance of food, or the dangers to be encountered in the 

 procuring of it, in one country and in another, may depend 

 the solitary or social habits of particular birds, and other 

 animals of precisely similar species. Did Mr. Blyth think 

 thus, he would not lay quite so much stress on the mere fact 

 of the common crow being gregarious in America, while it 

 is solitary here, as a proof of the distinctness of the crows 

 of the two countries. 



He asks, " What is a species ?*' I reply that a true spe- 

 cies is the uncrossed offspring of uncrossed parents de- 

 scended from any one primitive couple of beings, which God 

 created male and female, and for each other. Though a 

 species may have continued to propagate, without any inter- 

 mixture with other species, which would produce different 

 appearances, if not habits, yet I do not think that the order 

 of nature has offered any opposition to the structure and 

 habits of any animal becoming, from the cause I have men- 

 tioned, gradually altered, in a greater or less degree, from 

 those of its primitive parents. My views may seem to in- 

 volve the Lamarckian theory ; but they do not. On some 

 more convenient occasion, I hope to speak at large on the 

 changes which I believe, after much observation and reflec- 

 tion, to have taken place in the works of nature, not only in 

 the habit, but in the structure. — James H. Fennell. 4. Ches- 

 ter Terrace, Borough Road. 



Sparrows taking Possession of the Nests of Sivallows. — Mr. 

 Moss's communication of an instance of the house sparrow 

 attempting to take possession of a martin's nest (p. 545.), in- 

 duces me to send you the following extract from the Archi- 

 tecture of Birds : — " Avicenna, and afterwards Albertus Mag- 

 nus, tell us that, when a sparrow takes forcible possession of the 

 nest of a window swallow (.Hirundo iirbica), there ensues a 

 determined battle between the proprietors and the invaders, 

 in which the latter usually come off, in the first instance, vic- 

 torious, from their cunningly remaining in the nest. The 

 swallows, however, take care to be revenged ; for, summon- 



