XLI. 



PASSER DOMESTICUS. (brisson.) 

 House Sparrow. 



Of all our birds none is better known than the saucy, 

 meddlesome Sparrow. It is more generally spread through- 

 out the British islands than any other bird, and is to be 

 met with wherever man has fixed his dwelling place;* 

 it is of a less amiable disposition than any of our feathered 

 tribe, obtruding itself into the abodes of other birds during 

 their absence, and, with the greatest impudence, keeping 

 possession of them, and driving away the rightful owner. 

 I have many a time observed them basking in idleness day 

 after day upon the roof of a house, watching the progress 

 of the House Martin in the construction of its nest, and no 

 sooner has this little friend of man (with the greatest anxiety 

 and industry) completed that home in which its daily toil was 

 to have been repaid by the pleasures of bringing up its family, 

 than they pounce down and forcibly possess themselves of it. 

 I have noticed several pairs of Martins constantly toiling for 

 a whole summer, building nest after nest to no purpose ; and 

 though I have taken part with these helpless birds, and 

 ejected the old sparrow and its eggs, yet they have failed to 

 establish themselves. The Sparrow adapts the form of its 

 nest with singular readiness to the very opposite situations 

 in which it breeds : it is commonly placed in the spouts of 

 houses, in holes of old walls and buildings, and is then very 

 loosely put together; they also frequently take up their 

 abode in and underneath the nests of Rooks and Magpies, 



* My friend Mr. Atkinson tells me, as an exception to this, tliat there arc 

 no Sparrows iii tlic Hebrides. 



