CHAPTER XIV. 



I think I have already mentioned more than once that 

 there is a bird-shop in Rye Lane where I have picked 

 up some bargains now and then. Well, one day the man 

 that keeps it brought me a bird I had never seen before, 

 which he said he had bought of a sailor together with 

 a lot of common Java Sparrows. It was a small bird, 

 just about the size of a House Sparrow and not unlike 

 our familiar friend in point of shape and colour. On 

 the back it was chesnut-brown, greyish white on the 

 breast and belly, and the brown wings were marked 

 by a transverse band of yellowish brown not unlike 

 that on the same part of Passer domeslicus, so that 

 altogether I concluded the rara avis in question to be 

 neither more nor less than a Sparrow. 



The bill, however, as the man pointed out, was longer, 

 narrower, more pointed and of a deeper black colour 

 than that of our friend of the house-tops, and more- 



