BIRDS OF THE HUMBER DISTRICT. 51 



earliest arrival of the Brambling which I have noted 

 was at Spurn on the 10th of October, 1869 ; the 

 latest appearance in the spring, April 9th, a beautiful 

 male in the breeding dress. 



86. PASSER MONTANUS (Linnaeus). Tree-Sparrow. 



A resident throughout the year and breeding with 

 us. I have taken the nest in close- clipped fences, 

 also from pollard hawthorns overhanging the drains. 

 Very large flocks, probably migratories, visit East 

 Lincolnshire in October*, leaving again in the early 

 spring, about the end of March. They feed daily in 

 the stubble-fields in the enclosed country where there 

 are plenty of hedges, and are rarely seen in the open 

 marshes. I have sometimes seen five or six hundred 

 together. In very severe weather they occasionally 

 resort to the stack-yards, but are at all times rather 

 shy and wary, shunning alike the society of man 

 and their noisy domestic cousins. Colonel Montagu 

 found the Tree- Sparrow breeding in pollard willows 

 near Wainfleet, and was the first naturalist to point 

 out the similarity in the plumage of the sexes. The 

 nest resembles that of the domestic bird, of dead grass 

 lined with wool or feathers. 



The Tree-Sparrow is one of those species which has 



* In November 1860, as recorded by Mr. E. H. Rodd, of Pen- 

 zance, a large flock of Tree-Sparrows alighted on a Norwegian 

 vessel in the North Sea, between the Dogger bank and the 

 Galloper light-ship. 



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