, 
NOTES ON THE HABITS OF SOME COMMON BIRDS, 59 
and loafers of our city pavement, and at the first indication of 
impending hostilities they crowd together with marvellous 
rapidity. While battles between rival males are of common 
occurrence among most birds during the breeding season, sparrow- 
fights must often arise from other causes than disappointed love, 
as I have seen a female bird receive a merciless pecking from the 
bills of her ungallant brethren. 
It is in its relations with other birds, however, that the 
ruffanism of the sparrow is most apparent. At the breeding 
season it frequently engages in conflict with other species, and 
even the nests and eggs of the latter are often tampered with. 
_ These mischievous ways cannot be easily accounted for. We 
might, for example, suppose that the birds had incurred the 
displeasure of the sparrows by selecting, as the site of their nest, 
some bush which the latter had already determined to appropriate 
for a like purpose. If such were the case, however, the sparrows 
would surely adopt retributory measures at once, without waiting 
till the offending nest had been completed and the eggs laid. In 
the absence of any evidence to the contrary, we can only regard 
such doings as the outcome of that state of depravity which our 
_ Transatlantic friends term “ pure cussedness.” 
A pair of chaffinches had built in an Escallonia macrantha bush 
in front of our house, and close to one of the windows. <A few 
days after the nest was finished, and when several eggs had been 
laid, an unusual disturbance among the birds was heard. From 
the window a battle was seen to be in progress between the 
owners of the nest and some sparrows. The conflict may be 
described as a truly sanguinary one, for the wing of the mother 
chaffinch was wounded and bleeding. We afterwards examined 
q _ the nest, and found that it had been much torn and all the eggs 
broken. 
We have all heard of the sparrows which took possession of a 
swallow’s nest, and were entombed alive by the lawful owners of 
the disputed domicile. Such theftuous occupation of the nests of 
other birds appears to be a common habit of sparrows, although 
retribution does not always so speedily overtake the offenders. 
A blackbird had built in a yew bush in our garden, and, when 
the nest was almost finished, it was taken possession of by a pair 
of sparrows. They filled the nest-cavity with grass-stems, and 
