TREE-SPARROW. 207 



pointed out to us this species at Beechamwell, and 



favoured us with its eggs." I have myself also seen the 



eggs of this species on one or two occasions, brought in, 



by lads, to our Norwich bird- staffers, although unable 



to ascertain in what situation the nests were found. 



Yarrell describes them as building "in the thatch of a 



barn, in company with the house-sparrow, not however 



entering the thatch from the inside of the building like 



them, but by holes in the outside ;" also in the deserted 



nests of magpies and crows, in which they form f e domed 



nests," and my friend, Mr. Alfred Newton, informs me 



that they nest frequently in pollard willows, and that 



he took a nest, so placed, on the 5th June, 1853, at 



Wangford, in Suffolk, but adjoining this county, between 



Brandon and Lakenheath. In winter, and particularly 



in sharp weather, they appear to disperse themselves 



more freely in search of food, and a few stragglers are 



then netted in the stack-yards by our bird-catchers, or are 



shot with other birds in a common flock. Mr. Dix informs 



me, that at such times, he has observed them frequently 



at West Harling, some eight or ten coming to feed at 



once, but he has never succeeded in finding a nest in that 



neighbourhood. In January, 1862, a pair were killed 



by Mr. J. H. Gurney, junr., in Catton Park, by a chance 



shot into a thick bush, the birds being heard but not 



seen. I have long imagined that some, at least, of our 



winter specimens, particularly in localities where they 



are never seen at other seasons, might be migratory 



arrivals, but it was not till very recently that I met with 



the following proof, as it were, of my former impression 



in the same paper, by Mr. Ed. Blyth, in the "Field 



Naturalist" (vol. i., p. 467), to which I before alluded 



in my remarks on the migration of the redbreast and 



the golden- crested wren. Mr. Blyth's informant, who 



at that time (Oct. 8th, 1833), had just returned in 



a coasting vessel from Aberdeen to London, says, 



