200 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



bustling than those of the house sparrow, and further obser- 

 vation led to the discovery of their identity. First observed 

 in August 1880, they were then going in a flock on the 

 cultivated land near the houses, in company with linnets and 

 chaffinches. Last summer, however, I again found them in 

 the same locality, but in the breeding season, in the month 

 of June. They seemed not nearly so noisy, or obtrusive in 

 their habits as the more familiar species, spending [most of 

 their time on the ground, and at the breeding time frequent- 

 ing the potato patches, whence they flew backwards and 

 forwards, in the manner of starlings, with food for their 

 mates or young. They fly at a lower elevation than the 

 common sparrow. 



The last locality from which I have any record is Loch 

 Aline, in the district of Morven, a little way to the south of 

 Ardnamurchan, where Mr Black observed a pair of young 

 birds last autumn in a clump of birch and hazel not far 

 from the loch. 



With regard to their nesting habits, my own observation 

 confirms that of others, that their choice of a position for 

 the nest varies. I took one nest from a hole in the walls of 

 the ruined old church of Kilchoan, and two or three others I 

 observed were in the thatch of the crofters' houses, just above 

 the wall. The materials were similar to those used by the 

 house sparrow — straws and abundance of feathers. Mr Scot- 

 Skirving informs me, that at his former residence in East 

 Lothian, they built their nests in corn stacks. Mr Bolam 

 writes : " In Berwick it breeds in holes in the town walls, in 

 company with house sparrows and starlings ; and a little 

 further to the north, and again at St Abb's Head, I have 

 found its nest in the sea banks, sometimes amongst the 

 rocks, and sometimes in sandy banks in holes, at one time 

 very possibly used by sand-martens, or at all events in every 

 way similar to them. At Holy Island and several other 

 places in Northumberland, it regularly breeds in old lime 

 kilns (both used and disused), and I have not unfrequently 

 seen nests under the tiles of the roofs of buildings and empty 

 cottages, as also in holes in the walls of the same. In such 

 situations it has always struck me, that its nests were more 



