THE HOUSE SPARROW. 



PASSER DOMESTICUS. 



JUDGING from the observations of travellers who 

 are naturalists, there would seem to be hardly any 

 portion of the habitable, at all events of the culti- 

 vated, globe in which the House Sparrow is not 

 well known ; and this statement is all the truer 

 since the introduction of this familiar, but much 

 abused bird into Australia, New Zealand, and the 

 United States. 



By wonderful instinct birds will follow cultiva- 

 tion and make themselves denizens of new regions. 

 The Crossbill followed the introduction of the 

 apple into England. Glencoe, in the highlands of 

 Scotland, never knew the Partridge till its farmers 

 introduced corn into their lands ; nor did the Spar- 

 row appear in Siberia until the Russians had made 

 arable the vast wastes in that part of their dominions. 



