HOUSE SPARROW. 523 
Occasionally the Sparrow builds among the higher 
branches of apple or plum trees in a garden, sometimes in 
other trees, but seldom choosing one that is far from a 
house; and the nest, when thus placed in a tree, is re- 
markable for its large size, as compared to the bird ; it is 
formed with a dome, and composed, as in other cases, of 
a mass of hay, lined within with a profusion of feathers, 
to which access is gained by a hole im the side. So great 
is the partiality of the Sparrow for warmth, that abund- 
ance of feathers are used even to line a hole on the inner 
side of the thick thatching of a barn, and they have been 
seen collecting feathers in winter, and carrying them away 
to the holes they inhabited. Their young are fed for a 
time with soft fruits, young vegetables, and insects, par- 
ticularly caterpillars, and so great is the number of these 
that are consumed by the parent birds, and their successive 
broods of young, that it is a question whether the benefit 
thus performed is not a fair equivalent for the grain and 
seeds required at other seasons of the year. 
The great attachment of the parent birds to their young 
has been frequently noticed. In anote at the foot of the 
tenth page, vol. i. of the Zoological Journal, it is stated 
that a few years since a pair of Sparrows, which had built 
in the thatched roof of a house at Poole, were observed to 
continue their regular visits to the nest long after the time 
when the young birds take flight. This unusual circum- 
stance continued throughout the year; and in the winter, 
a gentleman who had all along observed them, determined 
on investigating its cause. He therefore mounted a ladder, 
and found one of the young ones detained a prisoner, by 
means of a piece of string or worsted, which formed part 
of the nest, having become accidentally twisted round 
its leg. Being thus incapacitated for procuring its own 
