PASSERIN 2. 267 
tail, 1°87 to 2°25 ; tarsus, 0°62 to 0°68; bill at front, 0°37 ; bill from 
gape, 0°43 to 0°5. 
Bill dusky to dusky-brown, black in the breeding plumage ; 
irides light-brown ; eyelids leaden-slaty ; legs pale to dusky fleshy- 
brown. 
Male above: head and ear-coverts grey, witha chesnut stripe 
from the eye to the nape; the rest of the plumage maroon, the 
feathers of the back centred dark ; wings and tail dusky, the 
feathers pale edged; beneath sullied brownish-white ; throat 
black. 
The females, except that they are everywhere paler, a purer 
white beneath, a lighter and greyer-brown above, with a slightly 
redder tinge on the lesser wing-coverts and on the lower back, 
and a rather more conspicuous white upper wing-bar, formed 
by the tip of the medial wing-coverts; there is really nothing 
tangible, except their very much smaller dimensions, by which 
they can be separated from those of the Common Sparrow. 
In the case of the males, in the winter plumage, not only 
the small size and paler tints and the narrowness of the black 
throat stripe not descending on to the breast, enable one to 
separate them from those of the Common Sparrow, but though 
the chesnut has almost disappeared from the mantle and rump, 
a trace of it lingers on the lower back, and the patch behind 
the ear-coverts remains a pure light chesnut instead of a maroon 
as in the common species.—Stray Feathers, Vol. IX, p. 444. 
The Rufous-backed Sparrow only occurs in Sind, where it is 
a permanent resident. It had been lost sight of for years, but 
has recently been rediscovered by Mr. Doig, who also obtained 
nests and eggs. 
He states that the nests were similar to those of P. domes- 
ticus but smaller, and were situated in the top of acacia trees, 
growing in water. 
Passer flavicollis, Franklin. 
711—Jerdon’s Birds of India, Vol. II, p. 368; Butler, Guzerat ; 
Stray Feathers, Vol. III, p 497; Deccan, Stray Feathers, 
Vol. IX, p. 416; Murray’s Vertebrate Zoology of Sind, p. 184; 
Swinhoe and Barnes, Central India; Ibis, 1885, p. 129. 
THE YELLOW-THROATED SPARROW. 
Length, 55; expanse, 10; wing, 3:4; tail, 2; tarsus, 0°7. 
Bill black ; irides brown ; legs cinereous-brown. 
Above ashy-brown; beneath dirty or brownish-white, more 
albescent on the vent and under tail-coverts, and white on the 
chin; a yellow spot on the middle of the throat; shoulders and 
lesser-coverts chesnut; wing with some white marks on the 
tertiaries, and two white bands formed by the tips of the coverts. 
The female merely differs in the yellow neck-spot, and the 
chesnut on the wings being paler than in the male. 
The Yellow-throated Sparrow is a common permanent resident 
