11 



transcendental Natural History? When I have concluded the 

 few remarks I intend makinor this evening, I hope to have con- 

 vinced you that I had an object in view, and dare to think you 

 may have learned something about our little friend, for such I 

 prefer to term hira, notwithstanding the atrociously bad character 

 some attribute to him. I am not about to tell you anything 

 conceming his loves, his quarrels, his nesting habits, and other 

 points with which all are familiar. But it may be well to say a 

 few words on his geographical distribution. This may l)e briefly 

 stated as comprised in the whole of Europe, the greater part of 

 Asia, North Aft-ica, &c. ; but the authority from which I quote — 

 "Yarrell's British Birds," 4th edition, edited by Professor 

 Newton — states that it is still an unsettled point whether the 

 Sparrow" of India be specifically identical or not. Yet it may be 

 news to some to learn (according to the same excellent authority) 

 it does not appear to have shown itself in the Outer Hebrides till 

 about 1830; that there are still isolated spots in the Scottish 

 Highlands to which it is a stranger; and that it has only appeared 

 in Siberia since the Russian conquest; war, trading, and exile 

 having apparently served a purpose in the economy of Nature 

 that was certainly never thought of. It has been imported into 

 Australia, New Zealand, Mauritius, Reunion, Bermuda, Cuba, 

 and the Continent of North America; and it is about its existence 

 in the last-named that I shall presently especially direct your 

 attention, as it formed the raison d'etre of the choice of " The 

 Sparrow" as a subject for my Address this evening. In a few 

 words, it may be said that the Sparrow cannot exist without the 

 society of civilized man. All who have visited the Alps must 

 have been struck by the paucity or absence of Sparrows, excepting 

 in the large towns. I remember when, in 1876, I made an 

 excursion into the heart of the Alps of Dauphin^, the SparroA\- 

 disappeared, apparently entirely, a short distance up the Yalley 

 of the Isere, alter leaving the City of Grenoble. I can recall to 

 mind the small town in which I saw the last sparrow^ on a long 

 and hot diligence ride; after leaving this place it was not seen. 

 The poor Alpine villages, in which one wonders how man himself 

 can exist, do not afford sufficient luxuries to accommodate both 

 man and sparrow, and the long dreary months of snow probably 

 destroy the latter even when it does effect a temporary settlement. 



