VOL. VII.] TREE-SPARROW IN IRELAND. 47 



pieces of straw, etc. ; and eventually they built their 

 nest and reared their young. He tells me that the 

 birds appeared very tame, and made a practice of 

 sitting on the clothes-lines and walls, waiting for the 

 fowls to be fed. When the food appeared they flew 

 down and joined in the repast. In 1907 a second pair 

 took up their quarters and bred under the weather- 

 boards of the next house. In subsequent years the 

 numbers breeding about these premises had increased : 

 in March 18th, 1913, Mr. Sulman saw twelve birds 

 perched on the raiUngs of his house, waiting to purloin 

 some of the fowls' food. He frequently observed similar 

 numbers this spring consorting with the fowls. With 

 regard to the houses themselves, Mr. Sulman states 

 that there were none erected at the west-end of the 

 Island until 1901 and 1903. The premises are slate- 

 roofed, with weather-boards at their ends ; the walls 

 are of cement, roughly dashed with small pebbles. The 

 school-house, also slate-roofed and dashed, was built 

 in 1901. The fog-signallers' dweUings are flat-roofed and 

 were not erected until 1905. It is thus quite evident 

 that the Tree-Sparrows could not have bred about 

 these premises longer than twelve years ; but, according 

 to Mr. Sulman' s account, some of the houses were erected 

 five years before sparrows selected them for breeding- 

 sites. 



So much then for the evidence of the Tree-Sparrow's 

 first appearance at the western extremity of the Island. 

 There still remains the question to be answered : had 

 they inhabited the thatched roofs of cabins in the valley 

 of the Island before that time ? On questioning the 

 natives I gleaned but httle information, in fact some 

 of the statements were conflicting. I was informed 

 that the sparrows and the Marconi operators with 

 their big houses all came together ; that the birds had 

 been only a few years on the Island ; that they were 

 always there, but not especially noticed until I came. 

 Asking them if they ever noticed larger sparrows, they 



