HEDGE SPAEKOW. 89 



foliage, in winter they boldly join the robin and other 

 pensioners upon our bounty ; coming close to our win- 

 dows and doors for crumbs, as they peck right and left 

 with their short shuffling gait, or with a succession of 

 long rapid leaps, or jumps close feet, seek the nearest 

 shelter when suddenly disturbed. With myself the 

 Hedge Sparrow has been always an especial favourite, 

 from its gentle unobtrusive nature, assimilating so well 

 with the neat russet and grey of its finely marked 

 though quiet plumage ; retiring yet not shy, and if 

 never quarrelsome, still always '^holding his own," 

 even with the pert sparrow and still more saucy red- 

 breast. Perfect contentment and self respect seem 

 stamped in every action ; its little song is heard as 

 cheerily whilst sheltering in the hedge bottom from the 

 driving snow storm, as on the brightest morning in the 

 early spring; whilst in the aviary he still utters his 

 little notes, low, soft, and warbling, and though to a 

 great extent an insect eater when at large, seems equally 

 happy on an exclusively seed diet. Considering the 

 large number of their nests that are yearly taken or 

 robbed, it is somewhat singular that these birds should 

 continue so plentiful, their beautiful little blue eggs 

 forming the chief spoil of our bird-nesting boys, being 

 so easily detected during the early spring, when as 

 yet the leaves are but sprouting in the bare fences. 

 Macgillivray alludes to a singular disease to which this 

 species is peculiarly subject, and which he describes as 

 ^'^ tubercular and apparently carcinomatous excrescences 

 upon the eye-lids and about the base of the bill." This 

 is observable in some examples, both in a wild state and 

 in confinement, but perhaps more frequently in caged 

 birds. I never remember to have had a hedge sparrow 

 in my aviary that did not sooner or later throw out one 

 of these excrescences just over the eye, and which after 

 a time would come away quite whole, about the size of a 



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