THE SPARROW IN EUROPE. 23 



"Willows, England, in the issue of the above journal for 

 May 10, 1877, substantially states that the sparrows do 

 not attack the crocuses grown in his garden, but in 

 that of a friend, living some miles away, their attacks 

 are exclusively confined to the yellow ones, the purple 

 variety escaping. He accounts for this preference on 

 the supposition that the purple flowers possess some 

 acrid or bitter property which renders them nauseous. 



W. Yon Freeden, of Hamburg, editor of the Hansa, 

 in a communication to Nature for May 17, 1877, which 

 is translated, says, " I have observed here that sparrows 

 have shown a very considerable partiality for crocuses 

 during this spring. My neighbor and I vied with each 

 other in our spring beds ; he excelled in yellow crocuses 

 and hyacinths, ,1 in white arid blue crocuses. One 

 beautiful Sunday the whole of his crocuses were found 

 bitten and torn by sparrows, and what is noteworthy, 

 also some yellow crocuses which had somehow wandered 

 into my lot, while the blue and white remained un- 

 touched." Should this be regarded as an oversight, or 

 was it a matter of taste? To offer a satisfactory ex- 

 planation to this peculiar predilection of the sparrow, 

 may not be classed among the impossibilities. Perhaps 

 a dry spring, the color sense of the species, or even a 

 more or less delicate mixture of the plant-sap, may ac- 

 count for it. 



Corroborative of the last writer's observations appears 

 in the issue of the same journal, dated May 31, the same 

 year, a communication from an anonymous writer. He 

 says, " I have for many years been a cultivator of the 

 crocus, yellow, white, and purple ; this spring they 

 flowered abundantly, the white and purple blooming 

 undisturbed, the yellow picked and torn." 



