568 



PERCHING BIRDS 



The lesser redpoll is a bird mainly confined to western Europe, 

 although it breeds in the mountains of the south. It is a resident 

 species in Scotland, the north of England, and Ireland ; and has on 

 several occasions been known to breed so far south as Derbyshire and 

 Nottinghamshire; while in 1901 a nest was recorded from Sussex. 

 In 1904 a pair of lesser redpolls nested in Norfolk while still in the 

 immature brown plumage. At the approach of winter these birds 

 migrate southwards ; and not many years ago were common during 

 that season in the alder and willow brakes of the Thames valley. The 

 nest is the usual mossy cup ; and the eggs, which but little exceed 

 half an inch in their longer diameter, are bluish with red spots overlain 

 by a small number of spots of purplish brown ; the whole of the spots 

 being in some cases aggregated round the larger end. A nest of this 

 species has been taken in the isle of Barra, Outer Hebrides. 



A solitary British record occurs in the case of the snow-finch 

 {Moutifriugilla tiivalis), a bird with the general appearance of a snow- 

 bunting, of which an example was killed in Sussex in February 1905. 



Sparrow (Passer The members of the genus Passer, as well as the 

 domesticus). remaining representatives of the finch-group (Fringil- 



lina.'), are distinguished from 

 the foregoing species b\' the 

 more swollen and inflated 

 shape of the beak, in which 

 the upper profile curves 

 gradually towards the tip, 

 while the line of the under 

 surface also shows a char- 

 acteristic difference. In the 

 case of a bird like the 

 sparrow, which has become 

 established in almost every 

 part of the world, and for 

 which no one has a good word to say, it would be a mere waste of 

 space to devote a single word to its description and habits. 



Sl'AKKoW |l (-..MALI'. 



Tree-Soarrow P'O'^ '^s more aggressive and dominant relative the 



^Passer montanus).t'-cc-sparrow is distinguished by the circumstance 



that the plumage of the two sexes is identical 



(instead of markedly dissimilar) in colouring, by the crown of the head 



and the nape of the neck being distinctly reddish brown instead of 



