HOUSE- SPARROW. 95 



Malmgren reports it as common all the year round at 

 Kajana. It is abundant at Archangel, and occurs sporadi- 

 cally in the valley of the Lower Petchora, where, according 

 to Messrs. Harvie Brown and Seebohm, it is remarkable for 

 its bright coloration. In Siberia it seems to have followed 

 the post-roads, but to frequent only the vicinity of the 

 stations near which corn is grown. Yet its invasion of that 

 country is of modern date and since the Russian conquest. 

 In some degree Pallas has traced its gradual progress across 

 the Asiatic continent where its most northern limit in the 

 Jenesei-valley is Vorogovo in lat 61° N. and, according to Dr. 

 Von Middendorff, its most eastern is the confluence of the 

 Shilka and Argun. Ornithologists are still divided in 

 opinion as to whether the Sparrow of India (the Passer 

 indicus of many authors) should be regarded as a distinct 

 species or not. Mr. Dresser (who has perhaps examined a 

 larger series of specimens than any one else) believes that 

 no valid difference can be maintained, and if we follow him 

 we find that the present bird has a very wide range in Asia, 

 extending from Yarkand, where Dr. Severzov obtained it, to 

 Siam and Ceylon — though here as in Europe there are many 

 localities (not apparently unsuited to it) in which it does not 

 occur. Returning westward some wide gaps hinder us from 

 tracing its presumedly continuous range, but it inhabits Beloo- 

 chistan, Bokhara and Persia, has been sent to the Zoological 

 Society from Trebizond, and is the common species of the 

 Levant generally — the neighbourhood of houses being here 

 as elsewhere always understood. It is resident in the Nile- 

 valley as high as Kordofan, and is common, though not 

 universally distributed, in Algeria and Morocco. It also 

 occurs in Madeira, but apparently not in the other Atlantic 

 Islands. In the Iberian and Italian peninsulas it is in 

 some measure replaced by two allied species (the P. hispani- 

 olensis in the former and the P. italics in the latter), but 

 throughout the rest of Europe it is almost everywhere 

 common.* 



* Dr. Hartlauh has obligingly communicated the information that until the 

 last seven or eight years no Sparrows were to be seen within the precincts of the 



