MIGRATION AND FLIGHT. 



85 



its cage before nightfall, and was taken as usual into the 

 house. As the season still farther advanced, it was to be 

 permanently housed, and was expected to sing again at 

 Christmas. 



Other facts deserve attention, proving that mere climate is 

 by no means, in all cases, the cause of these periodical visits. 

 Thus, some birds will, on the introduction of a new system of 

 cultivation, make their appearance in countries where they 

 were never seen before. The Crossbill (Loxia curvirostra) 

 has followed the apple to England. Glenco, in the High- 

 lands of Scotland, never saw the Partridge till its farmers of 

 late years introduced 

 corn into their lands. 

 The Sparrow again 

 extended its range 

 with the tillage of 

 the soil. Thus, dur- 

 ing the last century 

 it has spread gra- 

 dually over Asiatic 

 Eussia, towards the 

 north and east, al- 

 ways following the 



progress of cultiva- Cross-Bill, 



tion. It made its 



first appearance on the Irtisch, in Tobolsk, soon after the 

 Eussians had ploughed the land. It came, in 1735, up the 

 Obi to Beresow, and four years afterwards to Naryn, about 

 fifteen degrees of longitude farther east. In 1710, it had 

 been seen in the higher parts of the course of the Lena, in the 

 government of Irkutzk. In all these places it is now common, 

 but it is not yet found in the uncultivated regions of Kamts- 

 chatka.* From certain entries in the Hunstanton Household 

 Book, from 1519 to 1578, in which Sparrows (or, as they are 

 there written, Spows, or Sparrhouse) are frequently recorded, 

 it would appear that these birds took their place in the larders 



* L YELL'S GeoL, iii. 22. 



