NOTES AND QUERIES. 297 



placed in the fork of a Scotch pine, and was well sheltered by the foliage. 

 It was composed of sticks and twigs, and lined with moss and sheep's-wool, 

 and contained six eggs. Last year I noticed a pair nesting in a somewhat 

 similar position near Celbridge, Co. Kildare. When in the Island of Achill 

 with my friend James W. Banks, in the autumn of 1879, we noticed a 

 peculiarity of colour, or rather shade, in the Hooded Crows there. The 

 grey parts were of a lighter shade and a bluer tinge than in any of these 

 birds I have seen elsewhere. It was particularly so on the nape and upper 

 part of the back. The only part of Achill where we saw Hooded Crows 

 was in the neighbourhood of Keem Bay, and the adjacent village of Keele. 

 The birds of this species which I have seen in Co. Antrim, on the Co. 

 Clare coast, and in the Aran Isles (usually mis-spelt Arran), show nothing 

 of this peculiarity. So far as I have observed they are not much more 

 numerous on the west coast than on the Co. Dublin shore.— J. E. Palmer 

 (Lyons Mills, Straffan, Co. Kildare). 



The Sparrow and his Ways.— I have all my life been a friend to the 

 House Sparrow, and have defended him against many charges brought 

 against him. Last year, however, I saw an abstract of a uaper read at the 

 Essex Natural History Society by Major Russell, in which this bird was 

 denounced most emphatically. Major Russell contended that the Common 

 Sparrow was causing the extinction of the House Martin, and gave some 

 weighty evidence in proof thereof. I have been in consequence induced to 

 pay particular atteution during the summer to this bird, and I am able to 

 endorse all, if not more than Major Russell stated against it; for the 

 Sparrow not only steals away the nest, but ruthlessly destroys that of every 

 bird which happens to be weaker and has a softer bill. Our summer 

 migrants no sooner select sites for their nests than they are attacked and 

 driven away, and the aggressor may be seen strutting across the lawn as 

 though he had done a good deed, dauntily proclaiming himself "cock of 

 the walk." The side of my house is covered with creepers, in which 

 numerous Sparrows had built their nests, most of which were formed from 

 the commenced nests of other birds. Now, as I preferred the migrants, 

 and Chaffinches, Water Wagtails, Greenfinches, Goldfinches, and Grey 

 Linnets, I ordered the Sparrows to be destroyed and three-brick-traps to be 

 set, in which fifty of these pirates were taken. Most of them, however, 

 were hens and young birds, the old cocks being too crafty for a brick-trap. 

 I shall continue the same plan this year, and hope to make some impression 

 upon this horde of robbers. I make no direct charge against the Sparrow 

 on the score of food, though he persistently robs the chickens, keeping all 

 other birds at a distance ; but I suspect that, when I continue my observa- 

 tions during the present summer, I shall find he is more granivorous than 

 insectivorous, and I shall have to denounce him as an enemy to the agri- 

 cultural interests.— C. R. Bkee (Colchester). 



