548 FRINGILLIM. 



Occasionally the Sparrow builds among the higher 

 branches of apple or plum trees in a garden, sometimes in 

 other trees, but seldom choosing one that is far from a 

 house; and the nest, when thus placed in a tree, is re- 

 markable for its large size, as compared to the bird ; it is 

 formed with a dome, and composed, as in other cases, of 

 a mass of hay, lined within with a profusion of feathers, 

 to which access is gained by a hole in the side. So great 

 is the partiality of the Sparrow for warmth, that abund- 

 ance of feathers are used even to line a hole on the inner 

 side of the thick thatching of a barn, and they have been 

 seen collecting feathers in winter, and carrying them away 

 to the holes they inhabited. Their young are fed for a 

 time with soft fruits, young vegetables, and insects, par- 

 ticularly caterpillars, and so great is the number of these 

 that are consumed by the parent birds, and their successive 

 broods of young, that it is a question whether the benefit 

 thus performed is not a fair equivalent for the grain and 

 seeds required at other seasons of the year. 



The great attachment of the parent birds to their young 

 has been frequently noticed. In a note at the foot of the 

 tenth page, vol. i. of the Zoological Journal, it is stated 

 that a few years since a pair of Sparrows, which had built 

 in the thatched roof of a house at Poole, were observed to 

 continue their regular visits to the nest long after the time 

 when the young birds take flight. This unusual circum- 

 stance continued throughout the year ; and in the winter, 

 a gentleman who had all along observed them, determined 

 on investigating its cause. He therefore mounted a ladder, 

 and found one of the young ones detained a prisoner, by 

 means of a piece of string or worsted, which formed part of 

 the nest, having become accidentally twisted round its leg. 

 Being thus incapacitated for procuring its own sustenance, 

 it had been fed by the continued exertions of its parents. 



