PLATE I 

 TREE SPARROW. Passer montanus 



July yd, 1898. Mildenhall, Suffolk. The row of pollard willows depicted 

 in the Plate was a favourite haunt of Tree Sparrows; almost every tree had 

 two or three nests in the hollow crown of the stump. When I took this 

 photograph the birds were hard at work feeding the young of their second 

 brood, and a local ornithologist informed me that he had often taken fresh 

 eggs from these same trees in the middle of August probably the third 

 brood in that season. 



I watched several nests for some time, and noted that the principal item 

 in the bill of fare was a large, fat green caterpillar. I tried to get one of 

 them in order to see the species, but was unable to manage it. 



Frequent scrimmages arose in those trees where two or three pairs were 

 nesting in close proximity, all the inhabitants taking part, and the birds from 

 the neighbouring trees collected to see the cause of the disturbance. I 

 roughly estimated the colony at forty-five pairs of birds. 



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