THE SPARROW IN EUROPE. 31 



although six sometimes constitutes a nest full. They 

 are grayish-white in ground-color, and profusely covered 

 with spots and dashes of gray-brown. They vary, how- 

 ever, in markings, and it is quite common to find in 

 the same nest eggs that are nearly black with the 

 mottlings, and others with few if any spots or stripes 

 at all. 



The young, according to Macgillivray, in progressing 

 towards maturity, pass through the following stages: 

 "At first moult, completed by beginning of winter, 

 males assume colors of adult birds, although it is not 

 until next season that they are perfected ; females also 

 acquire deeper tints. In the second plumage the male 

 is as follows: Upper mandible light grayish-brown, 

 low r er flesh colored with tip brown ; feet pale brown, 

 upper part of head brownish-gray ; preocular space 

 blackish-gray ; line over the eye extending down neck, 

 yellowish-gray mixed with chestnut-brown; some 

 lateral feathers of neck little chestnut near tip; auricu- 

 lar coverts greenish-gray ; forepart of neck, breast, 

 abdomen, light yellowish-gray, fading posteriorly into 

 white; a broad band down foreneck from mandible ob- 

 scurely black, that color being concealed by whitish 

 tips of feathers. Anterior dorsal and scapular feathers 

 light 3'ellowish-brown, their inner web brownish-black 

 at tip; posterior dorsal and upper tail coverts light 

 greenish-gray ; lower tail coverts light yellowish-gray. 

 Tail wood-brown, margined with gray; smaller wing- 

 coverts light brown, with little chestnut near tips; 

 quills dusky externally, margined with yellowish-brown ; 

 primary coverts the same ; secondary coverts with a 

 broader external margin of yellowish-brown; the first 

 row of small coverts tipped with paler yellowish-brown. 



