602 PASSER DOMESTICUS. 



Indian birds, which is chiefly apparent in the females, aud the slight alteration in colour, is owing entirely to 

 food and climatic influence. 



Indian and Ceylonese examples are identical. A male from Madras in my collection measures in the wing 3-0.5 inches, 

 and has the white cheek-patch and the under surface as much tinged with grey as in European birds. Specimens 

 from Ceylon, and, as far as I have seen them, from India, have only a trace of the little white spot above and 

 behind the eye and of the white edging above the lores ; it is always more or less present, which, inasmuch as it 

 is such an obscure characteristic even in the European bird, more than any thing, I think, tends to prove the 

 identity of the two races. In England I find that the Sparrow varies in size, depending to a certain extent, as 

 it would appear to me, on conditions of food. The largest birds I have seen are from farmyards in the countrv, 

 where an abundant sustenance is afforded them. Five males in my possession measure from 2*9 to 3 - 05 inches 

 in the wing, and females from 2*9 to 3'0. 



Mr. Dresser, in his great work on European birds, unites the two forms, and Messrs. Hume and Blauford are likewise 

 of opinion that the Indian bird caunot correctly be specifically separated. 



Distribution. — As in other countries, the House-Sparrow is found about human habitations in almost 

 every town and village in Ceylon. It evidently was formerly only an inhabitant of the maritime and large 

 inland cities and villages of the natives, and probably affected the settlements in the valleys of the Kandyan 

 province ; thence it continued to follow the march of Europeans into the hills, during the opening up of the 

 mountain forests from one elevation to another, until it has now established itself at Nuwara Elliya and is 

 common there. Mr. Holdsworth remarks, in his catalogue, that old residents at the Sanatariuui remember 

 the time when " the now common Sparrows and Musquitos were unknown at that elevation." I have no 

 doubt that when the solitudes of the Horton Plains are invaded, and the many allotments now marked out are 

 studded with bungalows, the Sparrow will make itself as much at home there as he has clone in the somewhat 

 lower plain of Nuwara Elliya. I have visited villages in the interior of the northern forest tract where there 

 were no Sparrows; but it is found at Anaradjapura, and I think all along the Northern road. Mr. Parker 

 tells me it inhabits the villages in the Uswewa district. 



It is generally diffused all over India, from the extreme south to the Himalayas, where Mr. Brooks 

 found it above Mussouri, not differing at all from its companions of the plains. It is abundant in Sindh, and 

 throughout the Kattiawar, Kutch, Guzerat, and Sambhur-Lake districts. In the Deccau it is, of course, common, 

 and found everywhere around human habitations ; it occurs on the Nilghiris and in the villages in thePalanis 

 up to 5000 feet elevation (Fairbank) . It is of course very numerous throughout Bengal, but gradually gets 

 more local in its distribution as wc travel to the eastward. In Cachar Mr. Inglis did not notice it; but it 

 is found throughout Pegu, according to Mr. Oates, and Mr. Blyth says it is not uncommon at Akyab in 

 Arracan. At Rangoon Mr. Hume says it is as common as Passer montanus (which replaces it to the south), 

 and occasionally strays over to Moulmein in the Tenasserim province; but south of this it has not been 

 procured or seen by Mr. Davison and others collecting in the province. Crawford is said to have procured 

 n m Siam. 



At some distant period it has, if not originally indigenous to the country, perhaps invaded India from 

 lieluchistan and Persia, which it inhabits plentifully, although it is not universally distributed through Western 

 Asia to Europe; it is, however, says Professor Newton, the common species of the Levant. As regards 

 Palestine, Canon Tristram remarks, "The Sparrow of the Syrian cities is our own P. dornesticus, which in 

 bis westward migrations has acquired neither additional impudence, assurance, nor voracity." Severtzoff 

 records it from Yarkand, though Dr. Scully did not see it there or anywhere in Eastern Turkestan. In Siberia, 

 as I have observed already, it is found, but only in certain localities : on the river Ob, Dr. Finsch observed it 

 (inly near cattle-stations; in the town of Berezoff it occurred, but not in Obdorsk. Further east, Mr. Seebohm 

 states that it abounds in all the towns and villages as far as Yenesaisk, and he met with it once at Kooray-i-ka, 

 within the arctic circle, although it had entirely disappeared about latitude 00°. Beyond the Yenesay it ranges 

 - far east, according to Dr. von Middcndorff, as Ust Strelka, the confluence of the Chilka and Argun rivers, 

 « Inch there join to form the Amour. Between this point and the Chinese Empire (the very place, above all 

 others, suited for it) the solitudes of Mongolia must present a bar to its advance. It is found near Lake 

 Baikal, straying thence to the island of Olchon (Dresser). 



In Northern Africa it is resident in Egypt and Nubia, and is abundant there ; Mr. E. C. Taylor found it 



