184 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 



resident with us throughout the year, but in its dis- 

 tribution not only in Somersetshire but all over 

 England is extremely local : Yarrell says it is not 

 contained in the Catalogues of Dorset or Devon- 

 shire, and in Cornwall one specimen only seems to 

 have been noticed, and that is in the Museum at 

 Falmouth ; in other counties, however, it is not very 

 uncommon. 



The nest of the Tree Sparrow is usually placed in 

 a hole in an old decayed or pollard tree ; other places 

 are, however, occasionally chosen, as in the thatch of 

 a barn or other old building ; the deserted nest of a 

 Magpie or Crow has also been mentioned : it is 

 formed of hay and lined with feathers.* 



The food of the Tree Sparrow appears to consist 

 of both seeds and insects, also of the fresh shoots of 

 seeds and vegetables.! Meyer also mentions an 

 instance in which the crops of about twenty indi- 

 viduals were examined and only one contained 

 corn, namely, two or three grains of barley, but 

 the seeds of fifty different sorts of weeds growing 

 in the neighbourhood were found. This bird, how- 

 ever, is not sufficiently numerous to have any great 

 effect, either for good or for ill, on the farm or in the 

 garden. It is easily kept in confinement and may be 

 fed like a Canary or Goldfinch. 



* Yarrell, vol. L, pp. 542, 543. 

 | Meyer, vol. iii. p. 77. 



