550 FRINGILLIDJE. 



in his efforts to extricate himself, fell from his nest, and 

 hung suspended below it. He was observed for some time 

 making prodigious exertions to escape, but in vain ; and 

 his remains are now to be seen, gibbeted at his own door, 

 and fluttering in the wind, whilst the straws of his nest 

 project from the eye-hole above his head." 



The Sparrow, as before observed, is seldom seen far 

 from the habitations of men; but as summer advances, 

 and the young birds of the year are able to follow the old 

 ones, they become gregarious, flying in flocks together to 

 the nearest field of wheat, as soon as the corn is suffi- 

 ciently hardened to enable them to pick it out, and here 

 for a time they are in good quarters ; but when the corn 

 is housed, and the fields gleaned, their supply being thus 

 cut off, they return to the vicinity of houses, to seek again 

 the adventitious meal which the habitations of men are 

 likely to afford them. 



The House Sparrow is common over the whole of the 

 United Kingdom, including the islands of Orkney and 

 Shetland; it is common also in Denmark, Norway, and 

 Sweden, where, M. Nilsson says, it infests every house. 

 From thence southward its range is extended to Spain, 

 Portugal, and North Africa ; in the south-east it is found 

 in Italy, Corfu, Dalmatia, and the Ionian Islands. Mr. 

 H. E. Strickland says, that our species for there are 

 three others in Europe is the Common House Sparrow 

 of the Levant ; and the Zoological Society have received 

 specimens from Trebizond and the Nubian Mountains. 

 Colonel Sykes includes this species in his Catalogue of the 

 Birds of the Dukhun, from whence he brought specimens, 

 and it has also been received in this country from the 

 Himalaya Mountains, from Nepal and the vicinity of Cal- 

 cutta. 



The beak of the adult male in summer is a bluish lead 



