TREE SPARROW. Ill 



may be seen with it in the streets of towns, yet in 

 England it has not advanced so far, and while we look 

 upon the House Sparrow as a town bird, we must 

 consider the Tree Sparrow as a bird of the country 

 and wilder districts away from all habitation. 



It is a smaller and handsomer bird than the House 

 Sparrow, and may be easily distinguished from it by 

 its chestnut head and neck, a white circle round the 

 black ear covert, and by a double bar on the wing. It 

 is more lively and active than the House Sparrow, 



TREE SPARROW. 



with which it may often be seen in company, and like 

 it, it is very pugnacious. Its food consists of seeds 

 and insects and sometimes grain, though in this 

 respect it seems to be far less destructive than its 

 namesake. Meyer states that out of twenty in- 

 dividuals examined, there was only one whose crop 

 contained any corn, namely, two or three barley-corns; 

 those of the others contained upwards of fifty seeds 

 of weeds growing in the neighbouring fields. 



The Tree Sparrow has a few notes, which are not 



