HOUSE-SPARROW. 65 
choice of a nesting-site is very various. The usual situation is under the 
eaves, in the niches of masonry, in walls, amongst thatch, and in holes in 
trees ; in fact the bird will take possession of any suitable hole in a wall or 
pipe and there make its nest. 
The Sparrow chooses also other sites; and in this particular we have 
perhaps the most interesting part of its life-history. In addition to the 
clumsy, ill-made nest which the Sparrow always builds in holes, it fre- 
quently constructs a well-made domed nest in a tree. It is probable that 
the birds which build domed nests always breed in trees, and that the habit is 
hereditary ; but some ornithologists have supposed that the Sparrow builds 
in trees for the sake of coolness, and only in exceptionally hot weather. 
Almost every kind of tree is selected, but evergreens are perhaps the most 
frequently chosen. The nests are also often built amongst ivy, either 
growing on walls or on tree-trunks. A more unusual breeding-place was 
noticed by Dixon when in Skye; he writes :—“ A fact worthy of note is 
the breeding-place of this bird at Portree. In some few instances I found 
their nests in the dense furze bushes by the roadside, within a few inches 
of the ground. They were domed structures, like those the bird invariably 
makes when in the branches of trees, and it was no uncommon thing to 
see two in the same bush.” The Sparrow also very often usurps the nest 
of the House-Martin, or even that of the Barn-Swallow ; and it will fre- 
quently build amongst the sticks of Rooks’ nests ; and in the Dobrudscha 
I saw the nest of an Egyptian Vulture containing two young half-fledged 
birds, underneath which one or more Sparrows had built their nests, and 
were hopping about amongst the sticks as unconcernedly as possible. It 
also sometimes builds in the old nest of a Magpie. A Sparrow’s nest in a 
tree is a very different structure to a Sparrow’s nest ina hole. In the 
latter situation it is very loosely and slovenly put together, very often a 
portion of the materials hanging out of the hole, attracting the attention of 
every passer-by; but in a tree it is globular and well woven, and the hole 
which admits the parent birds is often so effectually concealed as to render 
it necessary to pull the structure to pieces to get at the eggs within. Dry 
grass and straws, itermixed with all kinds of rubbish, such as strips of 
rags, twine, worsted, &c., form the outside, and it is always warmly lined 
with a profusion of feathers, and sometimes masses of wool and hair. 
The eggs of the House-Sparrow vary from five to seven in number, and 
are pale bluish white in ground-colour, more or less thickly blotched, 
spotted, and speckled with dark brown, lilac, and greyish brown. They 
vary considerably in size, shape, and colour. In some the ground-colour 
is almost concealed by the rich brown markings, freckled and blotched 
over the entire surface; in others the spots are large and very bold, and 
chiefly massed on the large end of the egg; whilst many specimens are 
scarcely distinguishable from those of the Pied Wagtail. They vary in 
VOL, II. = 
