THE



201



Bvicultural flftacjasme,


BEING THE JOURNAL OF THE


AVICULTURAL SOCIETY.



New Series —VOL. VII. — No. 7 .—All rights reserved. MAY, 1909.



THE CINNAMON TREE-SPARROW.


Passer cinnamomeus.


By Capt. G. A. Perreau.


Mr. Teschemaker, having successfully reared young of

this species from a pair I brought home with me last April, asked

me if I would care to write an account of the wild life of this

bird to accompany his account of the nesting, etc., in captivity.

This I am very pleased to do, and cannot make a better start than

by quoting in full Oates’s account in The Fauna of British India —

Birds, of this and the nearly allied species, P. assimilis , Vol. II.,

No. 780.


“ Colouration. Male. The upper plumage, from forehead

to rump, including the scapulars and lesser wing-coverts, bright

cinnamon-rufous, the feathers of the back with the inner web

black, wholly or partially, and all the feathers with very narrow

pale fringes ; upper tail-coverts brown with ashy margins ; median

coverts black, broadly tipped with white; greater coverts and

tertiaries black edged with pale rufous ; primaries and secondaries

black edged with pale fulvous; more broadly so at. the base and

just above the emarginations of the first few primaries ; lores

and round the eye black ; cheeks and ear-coverts pale yellowish

white; chin and throat black fringed with whitish ; a large patch

on each side of the throat bright yellow, lower plumage greyish-

yellow, more yellow on the abdomen and under tail-coverts.

The difference between the summer and winter plumage of this

Sparrow is very slight, the colours in the former season being

slightly more intense owing to the narrow fringes wearing

away.



