The Zoologist — September, 1874. 4155 



firs on Oliver's Mount, near Scarborough, Yorkshire. The birds, however, 

 as a rule, seem to prefer occupying the holes and cracks in the perpendicuar 

 sides of a stone-quarry near which the trees are situated. Tliey also in- 

 habit quarries in other parts of Oliver's Mount. — Beaven N. Rake ; Fording- 

 hridge, near Salishuri/, July 19, 1874. 



mortality of the House Sparrow and Martin, — Mr. Morris, writing from 

 Hayton, York, in the ' Times' of July 7th, says that martins have this year 

 been as plentiful as ever, or nearly so, which tallies with my experience 

 here; but swallows are uncommonly scarce in the Undercliff, more so than 

 I ever remember. Mr. Morris tells us that five dead martins were found 

 about the parsonage and church, and that the rest seemed to fly about in a 

 bewitched sort of manner, and to go to their nests much less often than they 

 would have done if feeding their young, which he should have thought only 

 another instance of the capriciousness of birds had not the cause been too 

 plain. There being no dates given, and nothing said as to the state of the 

 weather, one is at a loss even to conjecture the cause of death. With 

 respect to the mortality of the house sparrow, I am also puzzled, though it 

 is the young that have perished. In former years I have found nestlings 

 and embryo-chicks in the broken or perforated shells lying about, but never 

 in such numbers ; for instance, on the 26th or 27th of June, six dead birds 

 were found on the lawn, one of good size, too, that must have taxed the 

 parent bird's strength to carry. The addled eggs, I believe, are also 

 removed, which is not the case with many species ; and the nest of the 

 sparrow is a model of cleanliness, all droppings and refuse being carefully 

 removed. Though the weather was boisterous and wet, the young could not 

 have been blown out, the nests being deeply embedded in the ivy, the 

 leaves, scale-like, protecting and sheltering them ; but the old birds suffer, 

 the plumage of the sparrow being loose in texture and wanting in oily 

 matter, therefore readily saturated, so they may have failed in procuring 

 the required food, the young having an insatiable appetite, and the quantity 

 consumed is prodigious, being brought, on an average, every three or four 

 minutes — not mere crumbs either, but good-sized pieces. Though the well- 

 fledged broods are fed almost entirely on bread, which is readily found in a 

 neighbourhood like this, caterpillars and other grubs, as well as butterflies, 

 are taken to the younger nestlings, the sparrow being an expert fly-catcher. 

 I may remark in passing that butterflies, the white excepted, have been 

 very scarce this year. The flower-beds and seedlings have been much 

 injured this driest of seasons by the dusting of the sparrows, circular holes 

 being made, and the seeds scattered in aU directions but the right; but 

 fortunately, though somewhat in the eleventh hour, they have discovered, 

 in a sun-scorched bank, a shallow hole where the friable soil is well nigh 

 pulverized, and there they dust themselves without let or hindrance. A 

 white sparrow, fully fledged, was captured, but subsequently released, and 



