28 THE HOUSE SPARROW: 



unless in warm weather ; so cold, as well as want of corn, 

 may have something to do with driving him home. In 

 seasons when much rain spoils the corn on the stubbles 

 early, and the weather keeps warm, some of the sparrows 

 which have made the fields their home ever since they 

 flew from the nest may perhaps stay in them longer after 

 the grain is all spoilt, and eat more wild seeds than in 

 drier and colder seasons. I heard from Mr. J. H. Gurney 

 that he found much weed-seed in sparrows last autumn. 

 There was rain enough in September, 1884, to sprout the 

 grain on the stubbles, followed by very warm weather. 

 Difference in the seasons may account for the difference 

 between his experience and mine. Sparrows eat weed- 

 seeds in the fields only when they can no longer get corn 

 there, and, I believe, generally but for a short time. 



Finches feed on them much longer, remaining in flocks 

 on the stubbles long after all the corn and sparrows have 

 disappeared thence. Linnets depend so much on wild 

 seeds that they are numerous only on or near waste 

 ground which will provide them with a constant supply of 

 them. These birds are scarce here, but I have known 

 a number of them to stay all the summer about a field 

 foul with chickweed. The greenfinch feeds chiefly on 

 wild seeds, and, I think, prefers them to corn ; he does 

 very little harm to the farmer, unless he grows seeds of 

 the turnip and cabbage class {criccifer(x). I have found 

 scarcely any seed of this class, cultivated or wild (includ- 

 ing charlock) in house sparrows, while the crop of the 

 tree sparrow (the indigenous sparrow of this part of the 

 world) is commonly full of it. The few wild seeds I have 

 found in sparrows have not mostly been those of weeds 

 particularly troublesome to the farmer, and my observa- 

 tions have not led me to believe that these birds do any 



