

THE HOUSE SPARROV\^. 



PASSER DOMESTICUS. 



Crown and back of the head dark bluish ash ; lore, throat, and front of the neck 

 black ; above the eyes a band of uniform reddish brown, intermixed with a few 

 small white feathers ; upper feathers dark brown, edged with reddish brown ; 

 a single transverse white bar on the wing ; cheeks, sides of the neck, and 

 under parts greyish white. Female — head, nape, neck, and breast ash-brown ; 

 above the eye a light yellowish brown streak ; rest of the plumage less bright. 

 Length five inches and three-quarters. Eggs white, spotted and speckled 

 with dark grey and brown. 



What were the haunts of the Sparrow at the period when 

 men dwelt in tents, and there were neither farmhouses 

 nor villages, much less towns and cities, it were hard to 

 say. Certain it is now that thoroughly wild Sparrows 

 are not to be met with in districts remote from human 

 dwellings and cultivation ; they have left the hill-side 

 and forest as if by common consent, and have pitched 

 their tents where man builds, or ploughs, or digs, and 

 nowhere else. In the city, the seaport town, the 

 fishing village, the hamlet, the farmhouse, nay, near the 

 cot on the lone waste and by the roadside smithy,^ they 



