MIGRATION AND FLIGHT. 



89 



Cross-Bill. 



the apple to England. Glenco, in the Highlands of 

 Scotland, never saw the Partridge till its farmers of late 

 years, introduced 

 corn into their lands. 

 The Sparrow again 

 extended its range 

 with the tillage of 

 the soil. Thus, du- 

 ring the last century 

 it has spread gra- 

 dually over Asiatic 

 Russia, towards the 

 north and east, al- 

 ways following the 

 progress of cultiva- 

 tion. It made its first appearance on the Irtisch, in 

 Tobolsk, soon after the Russians had ploughed the land. 

 It came, in 1735, up the Obi to Beresow, and four years 

 afterwards to Naryn, about fifteen degrees of longitude 

 further east. In 1710, it had been seen in the higher 

 parts of the course of the Lena, in the government of 

 Irkutzk. In all these places it is now common, but is not 

 yet found in the uncultivated regions of Kamtschatka*. 

 From certain entries in the Hunstanton Household Book, 

 from 1519 to 1578, in which Sparrows (or, as they are 

 there written, Spow^, or Sparrhouse) are frequently re- 

 corded, it would appear that these birds took their place 

 in the larders of the nobility as delicacies with other 

 game, from which we may infer that they were at that 

 time as rare in Norfolk as they still are in some parts 

 of Russia, owing probably to the same cause, viz., the 

 limited state of tillage and growth of cornt. 



The Rice-Buntings, natives of Cuba, after the planting 

 of rice in the Carolinas, annually quit the island in 



* LYKLL'S Geol., in. 22. 



t See Household and Privy-purse Accounts of the L 'Estranges of 

 Hunstanton, communicated to the Society of Antiquaries hy Daniel Gur- 

 ney, Esq., F.S.A. 



