286 Mr. W. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 



possession of the burrow of the sand marten before the ver- 

 nal return of this species to the place of its birth ; and cer- 

 tainly the intruder, perched at the entrance of its neigh- 

 bour's burrow, peers about and chatters with as much confi- 

 dence as if the domicile were its own l)y " right of descent." 

 But few writers on natural history Avould seem to have ob- 

 served the sparrow in such :situations, but I have frequently 

 done so, and when the sand-bank was in the close vicinity of 

 trees and houses. 



On account of the propensities heretofore alluded to or il- 

 lustrated, the sparrows are perhaps the most amusing of our 

 small common birds ; but all bounds of propriety seem to be 

 exceeded, when, so out of character with the scene, they, all 

 begrimed, squat and chatter, and take up their abode on the 

 stupendous cathedral of St. Paul's in London, under the ca- 

 nopy of which the ashes only of the mightiest among our- 

 selves find a domicile. 



Examples of this bird partly and altogether white some- 

 times occur ; and a friend informs me that he once saw three 

 white individuals in one nest. In his ' Catalogue of the Birds, 

 &c., of Donegal,' Mr. J. V. Stewart remarks — "^ I have had 

 a milk-white sparrow in confinement for two years ; it was 

 taken from the nest, is very sprightly and a female. At its 

 moults there has been no change in the colour of its plu- 

 mage : it has got the eyes of all albinoes ^." Mr. R. Davis, 

 jun., of Clonmel, mentions in a letter, that in February 1841 

 he " got a singularly deformed female sparrow, in which the 

 upper mandible is slightly twisted to one side, the lower one 

 nearly two inches long and turned down like that of a cur- 

 lew : the bird was seen to feed by laying the side of its head 

 to the ground." 



In his * Familiar History of Birds,' the Bishop of Norwich 

 treats very pleasantly of the sparrow, as in the ' Journal of 

 a Naturalist' does Mr. Knapp in his usual graphic manner. 

 Bewick too waxes warm and eloquent in its defence against 

 the sweeping denunciation of Bulfonf. 



The Grosbeak or Hawfinch, FringiUa CoccothrausteSy 



Linn, (genus Coccothraustes, Briss.), 

 Is an occasional winter visitant to Ireland. A fine exam- 

 ple in the collection of my friend, Wm. Sinclaire, Esq., of 

 Milltown, near Belfast, was shot some years ago in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Hillsborough, county of Down. The Rev. G. 



* Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. v. p. 583. 



■\ FringiUa montana appears in Teinpleton's ' Catalogue of Irish Verte- 

 brate Animals ' as " a doubtful native." To my ornithological friends and 

 myself it is quite unknown. 



