3 
place agreed with them, they have become quite naturalized, and have already spread to the 
neighbouring island of Sandoe. The ‘Spoarve’ is not a favourite with the people of Skuoe ; it 
has increased so much as to be a perfect pest, eating the seeds when sown in the little crofts, 
and damaging the gardens. The inhabitants wage unremitting war against them, robbing and 
destroying their nests. I noticed several pairs of them in the village of Skuoe on the 23rd May, 
1872, and procured one nest, with four. eggs, which was built in a chink of a wall. After 
shooting one specimen the rest became so wary that I was unable to procure another.’ In 
Scandinavia it is tolerably numerous. Mr. Collett says that it breeds pot uncommonly in some 
parts of Norway, especially in the coastal districts, and is gradually spreading further into the 
country. It is common in Smaalehnene, the vicinity of the Christiania fiord, Nedenzs, and 
Stavanger. On the west coast it is rare near Bergen, but is found above the Arctic circle, at 
Ranen, and bred in 1865 on the Varanger fiord. In the interior it is periodically common in 
Land and Valders, and was met with by Mr. Hartman, in 1854, in flocks on the Dovre above the 
conifer-region. Nilsson says that it is common in Southern Sweden, and is found a full degree 
of latitude further north than the House-Sparrow. I never observed it in Finland, where, 
according to Von Wright (Finl. Fogl. p. 240), it is somewhat rare; and in Northern Russia, 
Sabanieff says, it is as numerous in the towns of the Jaroslaf Government as the common 
Sparrow, but is rarer at Moscow. He met with it throughout the Ural range. Mr. J. A. 
Harvie-Brown, who has just visited North Russia with Mr. Seebohm, sends me the following 
note:—‘‘ We found the Tree-Sparrow common throughout the greater part of the north of 
Russia which we visited. From Vologda northward to Archangel it is abundant, especially in 
the country villages, where it appears to replace the common species entirely. It is much less 
abundant, however, in the larger towns, being supplanted by the other species. Curiously, 
however, it appears in summer to be quite rare in Archangel and in the villages of the delta of 
the Dvina; and in 1872 Alston and I failed to obtain or identify a single specimen, although we 
recognized and shot it at Kargopol. This year, in March, amongst the large flocks of Sparrows 
busily feeding on the dunghills and farmyards in the town of Archangel, the percentage of the 
Tree-Sparrow was very small indeed. 
“Passing northward and eastward, the Tree-Sparrow continued to occur in some numbers, 
though they were not so abundant in April there as they were southward at Archangel during 
the previous month. As early as the 8th of April, at Kousonemskaia, some were seen carrying 
nesting-materials in their bills, though it was not until long after that they commencd nesting- 
operations at Ust Zylma. At the latter place at the time of our arrival (15th April) they were 
not nearly so abundant as they afterwards became. ‘They gained accessions to their numbers 
and were very abundant before we left at the commencement of June. The common Sparrow, 
which was evidently rare, if not altogether absent, at the time of our arrival, also became 
common about the middle of May. At Haberiki (forty versts lower down the Petchora than 
Ust Zylma) no Tree- or other Sparrows were seen by us on the occasion of our first visit to that 
place in the end of April; but there was a flock of about a dozen frequenting the little village in 
.the beginning of June. Cold winds and storms of sleet and snow at that time prevented them 
from beginning to nest; and they kept in one compact flock during the time we remained there 
(8rd, 4th, and 5th June). 
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