SLEEPING QUARTERS. 235 



greens of other kinds, and have been surprised to 

 meet with them close to the ground, sometimes 

 on a windy night. 



Ivy growing against houses, rocks, and round 

 trees, Scotch firs in large woods, and the reed-beds 

 of marshlands, are all beloved of Starlings for 

 roosting in. I have met with them in high old 

 thorn hedges in summer-time, and remember once 

 hearing a flock chirruping and whistling in a clump 

 of ash trees at eleven o'clock at night during the 

 month of August just as gaily as if it had been the 

 same hour in the morning. 



That some birds sleep in their old nests in 

 winter-time, and others utilise those made by a 

 different species, we have proved beyond a doubt 

 during our nocturnal investigations. House Spar- 

 rows constantly sleep in their old nests, and foul 

 them terribly during the time they are used as 

 bed-chambers. When they have paired in the early 

 spring, and before family cares have commenced, 

 the male and female often roost together in the 

 same hole. They are the most sagacious birds in 

 the world, and can adapt themselves with ease to 

 almost any combination of circumstances. I have 

 watched them go to roost behind sign-boards, in 

 holes under roofs, and in walls, in evergreens 

 overhanging much-frequented thoroughfares on the 

 outskirts of London, holes in hayricks, amongst ivy 

 growing against walls and round trees, holes made 

 by themselves in old thatched roofs, bare field 

 hedgerows, and in their own nests. They sleep 

 during the winter months in a number of boxes 

 fixed by a lady in our neighbourhood to the trees 

 in her grounds, for the Tits to breed in. Most 

 naturalists have observed the habit House Sparrows 

 have of picking up straws and feathers in the 



