144 THE SPARROWS, BUNTINGS, AND LARKS. 



stances : they looked adversity in the face and began 

 again. I hope they are at it still. That was ten 

 years ago. 



There are several near relations of the House Spar- 

 row which have not attached themselves to man, like 

 it, and one of them, the Yellow-throated Sparrow 

 (Passer flavicollis), is common enough in Bombay. 

 It is a more elegant and shapely bird than our house 

 pest, but an unmistakeable Sparrow. Its colour is a 

 pretty, uniform, pale ashy-brown, with a double 

 white band on the wing and a touch of dark chestnut 

 on the shoulder. The underparts are a little paler 

 than the upper. It gets its name from a patch of 

 pure yellow on the throat, but you must get near it 

 to see that. It makes its nest during the hot season 

 in any convenient hole, often outside, but never 

 inside, of a house. The end of a hollow bamboo 

 affords exactly the sort of accommodation it requires, 

 for which reason you will find it haunting scaffoldings, 

 plague huts, and other forms of temporary archi- 

 tecture. When the hen is on the eggs the cock sits 

 within hearing and chirps by the hour with the true 

 Sparrow accent. The eggs are usually three or four 

 in number and of a greenish-white colour, thickly 

 blotched and clouded with brown. 



We have one Bunting which almost takes the 

 place in India of the Yellow-hammer at home, swarm- 

 ing about fields and hedges and singing with more 

 cheer than music. But it is with us only in the cold 

 season, being a Greek, or Syro-Phcenician, by birth. 

 On a careless view the Black-headed Bunting (Euspiza 

 tnelanocephalci) may pass for a Weaver Bird on 

 account of its yellow front, but it is a larger and 



