142 BIRDS OF THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. 



considerable size have sprung up as watering places, the sparrow 

 has multiplied in a corresponding degree. Southwards of the 

 Frith of Clyde the species is found still more numerously, but 

 seems to attach itself for the most part to towns and the larger 

 villages. In many of the hill farms of Ayrshire, it is sometimes 

 entirely absent, and is then replaced by the chaffinch and yellow 

 hammer. During the breeding season, which lasts from the com- 

 mencement of spring until the middle of August, I have observed 

 it in very large communities in the immediate neighbourhood of 

 Glasgow; the most remarkable of these may be seen in an old 

 quarry, about a mile to the north-east of the city, and is certainly one 

 of the most extraordinary congregations of sparrows to be met with. 

 The entire face of the sandstone cliffs, forming three sides of a 

 square, is swarming with the birds ; every crevice has been taken 

 advantage of, and is tenanted in some instances by more than one 

 pair the nests being placed in contact an arrangement which, 

 judging from the perpetual clamour and onslaught among the 

 occupants, appears to be anything but harmonious. I have also 

 seen noisy companies of sparrows assembled together on the orna- 

 mental work of public buildings, and under the eaves of dwelling 

 houses in the principal thoroughfares of the city, where they ap- 

 pear to keep up a loud chattering at all hours of the day, varying 

 their amusements with an occasional fight. I recollect noticing 

 such a colony busily engaged in catching thick-bodied moths 

 (Noctuce) which had been disturbed by their rude behaviour, and 

 been obliged to issue from their retreats into the dazzling glare of 

 daylight. The sparrows made hurried sallies and caught the 

 moths, after many ludicrous turnings in their flight before they 

 accomplished their purpose. 



In May of the present year (1870) I was interested in observing 

 a noisy company of sparrows in possession of a part of the ruined 

 masonry of Dunbar Castle, the only isolated fragment of standing 

 wall now left of that once powerful stronghold. About twenty 

 pairs had established themselves for the season in this elevated 

 nursery, exposed to the full blast of the storms that so often beat 

 upon the time-worn pinnacle; but even there the hardy fellows, 

 like the sons of Neptune whose craft they hourly visited in the 

 adjoining harbour, seemed proof against both wind and spray. 

 These seafaring sparrows, as they may justly be called, appeared 

 to subsist on what they could pick up in the castle park or on the 



