TREE-SPARROW. 85 



with us are yet partial migrants, and it is unquestionable 

 that a large number visit England, especially its eastern 

 side, every autumn. Mr. Cordeaux says that in Lincolnshire 

 he has sometimes seen five or six hundred together. The 

 birds have also been observed on their passage hither as 

 recorded by Blyth (Field-Nat. i. p. 467) and Mr. Rodd 

 (Zool. p. 7312). In the former case, which happened in 

 October, 1833, flocks to the number of an hundred settled on 

 a ship bound for the Thames as she passed the coast of 

 Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. In the latter, thousands, it is 

 said, boarded a vessel between the Dogger Bank and the 

 Galloper light-ship in November, 1860. The Editor n>ay 

 add that he has rarely crossed the North Sea without seeing 

 some birds of this species which have often appeared far 

 from land. 



The common call-note of the Tree- Sparrow is a chirp, not 

 unlike though shriller than that of the House- Sparrow, but, 

 as Blyth remarks (Mag. Nat. Hist. vii. p. 488), it has others 

 in great variety. The cock has also a proper song, which 

 the same observant naturalist describes as " consisting of a 

 number of these chirps, intermixed with some pleasing notes, 

 delivered in a continuous unbroken strain, sometimes for 

 many minutes together ; very loudly, and having a charac- 

 teristic sparrow tone throughout." 



The Tree- Sparrow is a local and comparatively rare species 

 almost everywhere in England — even in those parts wherein 

 it is most abundant — while in others it occurs but as a 

 straggler. The English counties in which it seems not yet 

 to have been recorded as breeding are Cornwall, Devon, 

 Wilts, Hants, Surrey, Herts, Middlesex, Bedford, Mon- 

 mouth, Worcester, Westmoreland and Cumberland, but it 

 has probably been overlooked in all these except the two 

 first, the two last and Monmouthshire. It has not been 

 known to breed in Wales, and in Scotland its settlements 

 are still more sporadic — the counties of Berwick, Hadding- 

 ton, possibly Clackmannan, Perth, Aberdeen, Elgin and, 

 since 1872 (Proc. Nat. Hist. Soc. Glasgow, 1875, p. 101), 

 Sutherland being those alone in which as yet its nests have 



