HOUSE-SPARROW. 



93 



already been recorded by Graves, who, finding a nestling 

 Sparrow in like manner entangled by a thread, observed 

 that the parents fed it during the whole of the autumn and 

 part of the winter, but, the weather becoming very severe 

 soon after Christmas, he disengaged it lest its death might 

 ensue. In a day or two it accompanied the old birds, and 

 they continued to feed it till the month of March, by which 

 time it may be presumed to have learnt to get its own living. 

 The woodcut * represents the sad fate that befel a less 

 fortunate Sparrow which had built its nest in the ornamental 

 frieze of the Rotunda, in Dublin. Amongst the materials 

 used for that purpose, there chanced to be a woollen thread, 

 with a loop at one end. By some accident the bird got its 

 neck into the noose ; and, all its efforts to escape being vain, 

 was miserably hung below its own home. 



* Copied from the 'Illustrated London News' (vol. iv. p. 36) for January 

 20th, 1844. 



