on the Nesting of the Cinnamon Tree-Sparrow. 207


For a few days the parents fed well and matters appeared

to be progressing satisfactorily ; but one morning I was amazed

to see them rolling over and over on the ground locked together

in furious conflict. I separated them and awaited the next act

in the drama. Before long the male carried some food to the

young, and, as he was, standing half in and half out of the nest

engaged in the very natural and laudable task of feeding, up

came the female and gave him a vicious peck from behind.

Straightway paterfamilias put his helm ‘ hard aport ’ and emerged

in a furious rage and the two again fell to the ground, tearing at

one anothers’ throats. So it was jealousy—just female jealousy—

which has upset so many households at one time or another.

There was nothing for it but to remove the male and, as a

necessary corollary, to destroy two of the young. The latter

were naked squabs, closely resembling the young of Passer

domesticus. The female reared the remaining two young success¬

fully and they proved to be two males, resembling the female

but showing at an early age some traces of the black bib.


The following entry appears in my Log-book under date

4th July: “The two young Cinnamons flew. They are strong

and well- feathered, darker than the adult hen on back and crown,

grey on breast, the only buff being the stripe over the eye and the

lower margin of cheeks. They both show traces of a bib, the

dark feathers of the latter underlying the grey,”


About a mouth later this lieu laid another clutch of four

eggs, which found their way into my cabinet after being pliotoed

in situ.


And now a few words about the change of colour. As we

know there is nothing unique in this world but it is, I think, an

exceedingly rare thing for any passerine species to assume its

dullest colours in the breeding season and its brightest in the

depth of winter. Yet Capt. Perreau tells us that the adult male

he caught in the breeding season “ had no trace of colour,” and

that “about the beginning of December my birds” (i.e. both the

young and the adult males presumably) “ showed yellow.” Now

of course I was anxious to put this matter to the test, and, as

yellow is a colour not easily impaired by cage-life, I did not



