896 SPARROW 
rocky situations, and one, 4. collavis or alpinus, is a denizen of 
the higher mountain-ranges of Europe, though it has several times 
strayed to England. The taxonomic position of the genus is 
regarded by some systematists as uncertain; but there seems no 
good reason for removing it from the group which contains the 
THRUSHES and WARBLERS (7'urdidxw and Sylviidex), to which it was 
long referred without doubt. 
2. The HousE-SpARROW, the Fringilla domestica of Linnzeus and 
Passer domesticus of modern authors, is far too well known to need 
any description of its appearance or habits, 
being found, whether in country or town, more 
attached to human dwellings than any other 
wild bird ; nay, more than that, one may safely 
assert that it is not known to thrive anywhere 
far away from the habitations or works of 
Fr nr men, extending its range in such countries as 
a ae Northern Scandinavia and many parts of the 
Russian empire as new settlements are formed and land brought 
under cultivation. Thus questions arise as to whether it should not 
be considered a parasite throughout the greater portion of the area 
it now occupies, and as to what may have been its native country. 
Moreover, of late years it has been inconsiderately introduced to 
several of the large towns of North America and to many of the 
British colonies, in nearly all of which, as had been foreseen by orni- 
thologists, it has multiplied to excess and has become an intolerable 
nuisance, being unrestrained by the natural checks which partly 
restrict its increase in Europe and Asia. Whether indeed in the older 
seats of civilization the House-Sparrow is not decidedly injurious to 
the agriculturist and horticulturist has long been a matter of discus- 
sion, and no definite result that a fair judge can accept has yet been 
reached. It is freely admitted that the damage done to growing crops 
is often enormous, but as yet the service frequently rendered by the 
destruction of insect-pests cannot be calculated. Both friends and 
foes of the House-Sparrow write as violent partisans,? and the 
1 The ornithologists of the United States had timely warning from their 
English brethren to beware of this species, but some of them persisted in allowing 
or even advocating its introduction—the main object of which was alleged to be 
the destruction of ‘‘ measuring worms”’—the common name applied to the larve 
of certain of the Geometride, and the bird’s arrival was hailed in an ode by so dis- 
tinguished a poet as Bryant. Having found their new colonist a failure, it seems 
too bad of them to distinguish it emphatically as the ‘‘ English” Sparrow, for 
we, in this country, know what feeling that epithet expresses among the less- 
educated class of citizens of the great Republic ; and, as hinted in the text, 
the House-Sparrow is in all likelihood not indigenous to England. On its 
introduction to America Messrs, Baird, Brewer and Ridgway gave it its correct 
designation. 
2 Some of the more recent attacks upon it are contained in several issues of 
