388 THE HOUSE-SPARROW. 



Genus Passer. 

 The House-Sparrow. 



Passer Domesticus. (Ray.) Fringilla Domestica. (Linn.) 



" He that doth the ravens feed, 

 Yea, providentially caters for the sparrow, 

 Be comfort to my age !" — Old Adam in " As You Like It." 



The house-sparrow is the most common, if not most 

 destructive, bird in Britain — as common in crowded London as 

 at John o' Groat's. It seems to claim the u divine right " to 

 reign over the dwellings of man, with more chance of continuity 

 than the old " divine right of kings " to reign over his body and 

 soul. It is specially suited to live beside him, being, like 

 himself, omnivorous — as much at home hopping on a street 

 picking up crumbs, or the droppings of a horse, as perched on a 

 stack picking out grain. Fergusson aptly says — 



" The farmer's sons, as yap* as sparrows, 

 Are glad, I trow, to flee the barras, 

 And whistle to the plough and harrows 



At barley seed ; 

 What writer wouldna gang as far as 



He cou'd for bread ?" 



His great follower, Burns, never mentions it, although he 

 names almost every other bird — possibly because it does not 

 sing, or because he was a farmer, and Ferguson a " writer 

 chiel'." It makes its clumsy nest in holes, spout heads, under 

 tiles or eaves of houses, in ivy, or on trees near houses. When 

 on trees it is large and loosely arched over with hay, straw, 

 worsted, strings, rags, paper, or anything handiest, profusely 

 lined with feathers ; lays from five to eight oblong greyish- 

 white eggs, spotted over with darker spots. It breeds early. I 

 have seen them building on the 21st of January, and have seen 

 half-fledged young in August — proof they have several broods 

 in the year. I have seen three cocks bitterly fighting for one 

 hen — in this, too, imitating humanity. They are as multifarious 

 in nesting-places as omnivorous in their food. One built and 

 had eggs in the furled topsail of a laid-up sloop in the harbour ; 



* Yap, hungry. 



