THE SPARROW IN EUROPE. 29 



was loosened during the second trip, and both it and 

 the eggs which it contained, were destroyed. Again, a 

 pair of sparrows nidificated underneath the slings of the 

 foreyard of the ship Ann of Shields, just preparatory to 

 leaving port. When the vessel reached its destined port 

 upon the Tyne, the birds went ashore, and shortly re- 

 turned with materials with which to finish their homes. 

 The chief external ornament of the Rotunda, in 

 Dublin, is a superbly carved frieze. It represents the 

 heads of oxen, and is beautifully festooned with flowers, 

 which are pendant from the horns. The frieze encircles 

 the entire building at a considerable elevation. In the 

 hollow of the eye of one of these heads, a sparrow placed 

 its nest. Among other materials which the bird had 



O 



utilized for this purpose, was a woollen thread with a 

 noose at one extremity ; by some strange accident, wholly 

 inexplicable, the little creature got the noose around his 

 neck, and in his desperate exertions to release himself 

 from the unhappy situation, dropped from his nest, and 

 hung suspended below. The most prodigious efforts 

 were made to escape the threatened death, but in vain. 

 Unhappily his remains were gibbeted at his own door, 

 and were to be seen swaying to and fro in the gentlest 

 breeze, while the straws of his nest protruded from the 

 eye-hole right over his head. 



Mr. Thompson asserts that, in country places, this 

 species usually places its nests in spouts, and thus stops 

 the course of the rain, causing the house to be overflowed. 

 When ejected from such places, it is said to resort to the 

 branches of the balm of Grilead and the spruce, which 

 it prefers to deciduous trees. According to the same 

 authority, it often builds in rookeries; occasionally takes 

 possession of the nest of the house martin, which is 



