PASSERINE. 367 



Upper Pegu, southwards to Singapore and Java, frequenting the 

 plains, as well as the hills, and, in many places, it is the only species 

 of Sparrow found.* It is also common in China, Afghanistan, 

 and other parts of Asia, in the North of Africa, and all through 

 Europe, being found in Britain, and as far north as Lapland and 

 Siberia. Where it occurs in India, Burmah, in China, and most 

 other Eastern countries, it replaces the common Sparrow, building 

 about the roofs of verandahs and houses, and being quite as 

 familiar as its better known representative, and, indeed, in Eastern 

 Europe, it appears to have the same habits. I have seen it at 

 Darjeeling, where it is the only Sparrow ; at Thyet-myo, where it 

 occurs along with P. indicus and P. Jlaveohis ; and in Rangoon and 

 Moulmein. Its voice is less harsh than that of the common Sparrow, 

 and it is not nearly so noisy nor so troublesome as that bird. 



Lesson, in Belanger's Voyage aux Indes Orientales, records a 

 Sparrow from Southern India, said to inhabit the Coromandel 

 Coast, and to be common in the neighbourhood of Pondicherry. 

 I have never been able to procure it, nor do specimens exist 

 in any of our Museums. Mr. Blyth suspects that it may be P. 

 italicus ; if so its locality is probably incorrectly given, but 

 "more probably it refers to the common Indian Sparrow badly 

 described." I give a brief description of it in case it should be 

 recognised hereafter. 



Passer pyrrhopterus, Fringilla, apud Lesson. 

 Size of the common Sparrow. — Head and neck spotless rufous 

 brown; the mantle bright rufous, with black central streaks to the 

 feathers ; shoulder deep maronne, bordered by a small oblique white 

 line; the middle wing-coverts black, edged with rufous and maronne, 

 and the rest of the wing pale ashy externally, and brownish on the 

 inner barbs of the feathers ; under parts rufous grey ; the throat 

 reddish grey, with a black patch commencing on the lower part of 

 the neck; bill and tarsi yellowish. Female grey brown, above 

 silky brown with central streaks to the feathers ; below of a blonde- 

 grey throughout; wings ash grey, with a white ray on the shoulder, 

 but no maronne." 



* Blyth noticed that Burmese examples were more rufous above, .'and whiter 

 beneath than birds from Sikim which are identical with British specimens. 



