184 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 
resident with us throughout the year, but in its dis- 
tribution—not only in Somersetshire but all over 
England—is extremely local: Yarrell says it is not 
contained in the Catalogues of Dorset or Devon- 
shire, and in Cornwall one specimen only seems to 
have been noticed, and that is in the Museum at 
Falmouth; in other counties, however, it is not very 
uncommon. 
The nest of the Tree Sparrow is usually placed in 
a hole in an old decayed or pollard tree; other places 
are, however, occasionally chosen, as in the thatch of 
a barn or other old building; the deserted nest of a 
Magpie or Crow has also been mentioned: it is 
formed of hay and lined with feathers.* 
The food of the Tree Sparrow appears to consist 
of both seeds and insects, also of the fresh shoots of 
seeds and vegetables.t Meyer also mentions an 
instance in which the crops of about twenty indi- 
viduals were examined and only one contained 
corn,—namely, two or three grains of barley,—but 
the seeds of fifty different sorts of weeds growing 
in the neighbourhood were found. This bird, how- 
ever, is not sufficiently numerous to have any great 
effect, either for good or for ill, on the farm or in the 
garden. It is easily kept in confinement and may be 
fed like a Canary or Goldfinch. 
* Yarrell, vol. 1, pp. 542, 548. 
+ Meyer, vol. iii. p. 77. 
