FRINGILLID^E. 187 



besides the consumption of various sorts of grain, 

 which they devour in the rick-yard when they can 

 get it (always preferring a wheat to a barley rick), 

 and in the field, occasional inroads on green peas 

 and various sorts of garden-seeds in the kitchen- 

 garden, and in the flower-garden on crocuses, of 

 which they are said to be great destroyers : I have 

 never myself observed this particular piece of 

 destructiveness. 



The nest of the House Sparrow is placed in a 

 variety of situations : in holes in walls ; under the 

 roofs and thatch of old buildings ; in the tops of 

 water-pipes, which are often completely stopped up 

 in consequence ; in ornamental curved friezes and 

 coignes; it is occasionally also built in trees, in 

 which situation it is always a large, untidy, clumsy- 

 looking structure : it is, however, very warm within, 

 being lined with a great quantity of feathers, and 

 covered over, or " domed," as it is called : outwards 

 it is made of hay, straw, roots, shreds of cloth, and 

 nearly anything that comes handy and can be turned 

 to account. 



The House Sparrow is so common and well-known 

 that any description is almost superfluous, except to 

 distinguish it from the Tree Sparrow, and to show 

 that it is not quite what I once heard all our British 

 birds called, " dull little brown things, with no 

 variety of colour." In the male, then, the beak is 

 bluish lead-colour ; irides hazel ; top of the head ash- 



