TREE-SPARROW.— HOUSE-SPAEROW. 125 



TREE-SPARROW. 



Passer montanus. 



A SEVERE winter generally brings small parties to the coast 

 and the Downs, accompanying the flocks of Bramblings, and 

 searching, like them, for their food on the stubbles and about 

 the stack-yards. They arrive in small flocks, some of them 

 passing on from east to west, and returning again in the 

 spring, when the greater number leave the county altogether, 

 a very few pairs remaining to breed. A few years ago, I 

 found a little colony nesting in holes in some pollard ash near 

 the river Adur, in the parish of Henfield. It has occasionally 

 been taken in the sparrow-nets, roosting in the corn-stacks ; 

 I have also received it from Eastbourne. In plumage the 

 male and female differ very slightly. It generally chooses a 

 hole in a tree for its nest, but it has several times made choice 

 of apertures among the sticks under the Rooks^ nests at 

 Oakendean, near Cowfold. 



With regard to its song, though some consider it harsh, 

 my own opinion is that it is very pleasant, but a trifle Spar- 

 row-like, and it is continued for some little time. The nest 

 is composed of dead grass and feathers. 



HOUSE-SPARROW. 



Passer domesticus. 



Of this bird I may say with Horace — 



" Difficile est proprie commimia dicere : " 

 it is as universally distributed over this county as it is 

 over nearly all the rest of Great Britain, and I have little to 



