PADDA ORYZIVORA 149 
The Java Sparrow, or Padda-bird, is a native of Java, 
Sumatra and Malacca, and has become acclimatised in many 
other places, as India, Ceylon, Hast Africa, the Seychelles, 
Mauritius and St. Helena islands. 
Regarding its occurrence on St. Helena Mr. Melliss wrote 
in 1870: “A tolerably abundant bird, inhabiting the low 
rocky lands on the northern side of the island, where they 
are frequently seen hopping about in pairs; but they are seen 
in flights in the interior when the corn is ripening. It is not 
many years since this bird was introduced. It appears to 
thrive well and to be increasing in numbers.” 
In the British Museum there are specimens from Mauritius, 
the Seychelle Islands, Zanzibar and Pangani, and it is fairly 
distributed over Hast Africa within a radius of 300 miles from 
Zanzibar. 
Mr. Allan Hume describes a nest as placed in a thorn- 
bush, 7 or 8 feet from the ground, “ globular and very large, 
chiefly composed of fine grass, but with a few broad-bladed 
leaves of millet intertwined. The entrance small, circular, 
and lateral.” The eggs, five in number, ‘“ were very regular 
ovals, pure glossless white, and varied from 0-7 to 0°75 x 
0:55.” Dr. H. A. Bernstein gives a very different description 
of the nests and eggs: he found them, sometimes at the 
summit of various trees, sometimes among the numerous 
creepers which cover the stems of the areng palm. They varied 
in size and form, according to their position; whilst those 
attached to trees were for the most part larger and possessed, 
on an average, a fairly regularly half-ball-shaped form, those 
placed among creepers on the stems of areng palms were smaller 
and of a less decided, irregular form, only slightly hollowed 
out in the centre. All nests, however, were almost exclusively 
composed of the stalks of various grasses, which were not very 
firmly twisted together, so that the whole building was of no 
