17 



October 2,^d. All three birds present ; hen to-day 

 lying on nest, cock close by. 



All the birds were also present at the beginning 

 ot November, but I have no more notes, and very 

 shortly after this I left India for good. 



I would particularly draw the attention of avi- 

 culturists to the failures of these birds, although they 

 were obviously most anxious to breed and were living 

 under favourable conditions, to bring off their young 

 at times ; this may be a consolation to those who may 

 be inclined to repine at failures in breeding birds in 

 captivit)', and to put these down to unnatural con- 

 ditions. One does not often get an opportunity of 

 becoming intimately acquainted with the lives of a 

 pair of wild birds such as these were, and the fact that 

 they have their difficulties just as much as avicul- 

 turists, is worthy of notice. 



ITbe ^Di6^ce^6 of the Sparrow. 



By Verbum Sapientibus. 



y^ UFFIAN, avian rat, and general miscreant, as this 

 *T/^ well-known bird is universally admitted to be, 

 *-*— V. anathematised by the farmers, whose Clubs 

 have set a price on his unlucky head, and 

 denounced by the Board of Agriculture as a devastator 

 and robber of gardens, a destroyer of crocuses and 

 primroses, and, generall}'-, as a most unmitigated 

 nuisance, I niaj'^ still be excused for bearing my tes- 

 timony to yet another of his misdeeds, namely, an 

 unpardonaljle and by many wholly unsuspected crime, 

 of the perpetration of which I happened to have been 

 an eye-witness on the 26th of last May. 



I was sitting in one of the many public gardens 

 that adorn and beautify the Metropolis, when my 

 attention was arrested by the movements of a couple 



