HOUSE SPARROW. 523 



Occasionally the Sparrow builds among the higher 

 branches of apple or plum trees in a garden, sometimes in 

 other trees, but seldom choosing one that is far from a 

 house ; and the nest, when thus placed in a tree, is re- 

 markable for its large size, as compared to the bird ; it is 

 formed with a dome, and composed, as in other cases, of 

 a mass of hay, lined within with a profusion of feathers, 

 to which access is gained by a hole in the side. So great 

 is the partiality of the Sparrow for warmth, that abund- 

 ance of feathers are used even to line a hole on the inner 

 side of the thick thatching of a barn, and they have been 

 seen collecting feathers in winter, and carrying them away 

 to the holes they inhabited. Their young are fed for a 

 time with soft fruits, young vegetables, and insects, par- 

 ticularly caterpillars, and so great is the number of these 

 that are consumed by the parent birds, and their successive 

 broods of young, that it is a question whether the benefit 

 thus performed is not a fair equivalent for the grain and 

 seeds required at other seasons of the year. 



The great attachment of the parent birds to their young 

 has been frequently noticed. In a note at the foot of the 

 tenth page, vol. i. of the Zoological Journal, it is stated 

 that a few years since a pair of Sparrows, which had built 

 in the thatche'd roof of a house at Poole, were observed to 

 continue their regular visits to the nest long after the time 

 when the young birds take flight. This unusual circum- 

 stance continued throughout the year ; and in the winter, 

 a gentleman who had all along observed them, determined 

 on investigating its cause. He therefore mounted a ladder, 

 and found one of the young ones detained a prisoner, by 

 means of a piece of string or worsted, which formed part 

 of the nest, having become accidentally twisted round 

 its leg. Being thus incapacitated for procuring its own 



