40 
2 
chest ashy grey, auriculars washed with brown, and having light shafts; abdomen greyish white; flanks 
and tibie pale brown, the feathers having a broad central dark brown streak; under tail-coverts dull 
brown, broadly edged and tipped with dirty white; under wing-coverts pale grey, washed with buff; 
bill brownish black, dark flesh-coloured at the base and along a considerable portion of the lower 
mandible; iris dark brown; feet dull yellowish brown. ‘Total length 6 inches, culmen 0°5, wing 2°7, 
tail 2-2, tarsus 0°75. 
Female. Very similar to the male. 
Tue Hedge-Sparrow, or Hedge-Accentor as some naturalists prefer calling it, is distributed 
throughout Europe, ranging eastward into Persia, but not occurring further to the east, being 
replaced in Japan by a closely allied race, Accentor rubidus. In Great Britain it is one of the 
commonest and best-known species, being equally common in all parts of the United Kingdom. 
In Scotland, Mr. Robert Gray writes, “‘the familiar Hedge-Sparrow is everywhere known, from 
Sutherlandshire to the Mull of Galloway, and on all the Hebrides, except the bleakest islands. 
On Ailsa Craig even—an isolated refuge, without hedge-rows or any attractive brushwood which 
make the home of the species unseen in the not far distant valleys of Ayrshire—it hops briskly 
among the broken boulders, and trills its wren-like song among the ungainly Guillemots with as 
much heartiness as if it never knew a more verdant spot. In the dull gloom of one of the 
numerous caves intersecting that remarkable rock, I have seen the nest of this bird placed in the 
ledge of rock, at the foot of a handful of the hart’s-tongue fern, the floor of the cave being covered 
with water, and forming a strange contrast to the site usually selected by the confiding Shuffle- 
wing near the abodes of men. 
“From its habit of breeding early in the season, this bird is’ often robbed of its eggs by 
wandering schoolboys, who treasure them for their pleasing colour; and in almost all rural 
districts these young persecutors indulge in the regular habit of prowling along the yet leafless 
hedgerows, scrubby bushes, or cast-up heaps of winter prunings, where their plunder is only too 
easy of discovery. 
‘Tn our northern climate it is sometimes hard to withhold one’s sympathy for this modest 
little bird as it sits shivering on the withered sticks among which the nest is placed; frequently, 
indeed, a sudden change in the weather upsets the teachings of its own instincts by covering its 
haunts with a carpet of snow, on which it hops in sad wonderment at winter's return, although 
ready with a cheering note for its sitting mate the moment the breaking clouds show their silver 
lining and the peep of blue sky beyond.” 
From every part of England it is recorded as resident and very common; and in Ireland 
also, Mr. Thompson writes, it is distributed over the island in suitable localities. 
It is found in Scandinavia, more numerous in the northern than the southern portions of 
that country; and Mr. Robert Collett informs me that “it is a rather common bird in the conifer- 
woods, and above the Polar circle is tolerably abundant up to Tromsé and the valley of the 
Maalseto; in Finmark proper it breeds, though sparingly, in South Varanger. On the sides of 
the fells I have found it as far as the pine (Adzes) growth extends. Its chief habitat being in 
the young conifer-woods, the nest is almost invariably placed in small thick pine bushes, and is 
generally constructed of various species of moss. It is one of our earliest birds of passage, 
