TREE-SPARROW. 207 



pointed out to us this species at Beechamwell, and 

 favoured us with, its eggs." I have myself also seen the 

 eggs of this species on one or two occasions, brought in, 

 bj lads, to our Norwich bird-stufPers, although unable 

 to ascertain in what situation the nests were found. 

 Yarrell describes them as building " in the thatch of a 

 barn, in company with the house- sparrow, not however 

 entering the thatch from the inside of the building like 

 them, but by holes in the outside ;" also in the deserted 

 nests of magpies and crows, in which they form ^' domed 

 nests," and my friend, Mr. Alfred Newton, informs me 

 that they nest frequently in pollard willows, and that 

 he took a nest, so placed, on the 5th June, 1853, at 

 Wangford, in Suffolli:, but adjoining this comity, between 

 Brandon and Lakenheath. In winter, and particularly 

 in sharp weather, they appear to disperse themselves 

 more freely in search of food, and a few stragglers are 

 then netted in the stack-yards by our bird-catchers, or are 

 shot with other birds in a common flock. Mr. Dix informs 

 me, that at such times, he has observed them frequently 

 at West Harling, some eight or ten coming to feed at 

 once, but he has never succeeded in finding a nest in that 

 neighbourhood. In January, 1862, a pair were killed 

 by Mr. J. H. Gurney, junr., in Catton Park, by a chance 

 shot into a thick bush, the birds being heard but not 

 seen. I have long imagined that some, at least, of our 

 winter specimens, particularly in localities where they 

 are never seen at other seasons, might be migratory 

 arrivals, but it was not tiU very recently that I met with 

 the following proof, as it were, of my former impression 

 in the same paper, by Mr. Ed. Blyth, in the "Field 

 Naturahst" (vol. i., p. 467), to which I before alluded 

 in my remarks on the migration of the redbreast and 

 the golden-crested wren. Mr. Blyth's informant, who 

 at that time (Oct. 8th, 1833), had just returned in 

 a coasting vessel from Aberdeen to London, says, — 



