560 Colorado College Publication 



nest and identified. Dr. Arnold has seen this species eating 

 the cottony scale on maples trees. 



Passer domesticus. House Sparrow. English Sparrow. 



Resident; common about towns. 



The House Sparrow was first seen by Aiken in Colorado 

 Springs in 1895, on his return after an absence of a few 

 years. At that time there were several flocks about the town, 

 most of which had probably been hatched that season, and 

 numbering about SO birds ; the following year it was estimated 

 there were 500 birds in the same area. The species probably 

 reached the town in the spring of 1895. 



While the English Sparrow, everything considered, is a 

 pest and a nuisance, it does do a little good, possibly due to 

 the fact that it is greedy and omnivorous, and will eat almost 

 everything which comes its way. It has been seen to catch 

 grasshoppers and feed the fledged young with them in the 

 street ; to work about in the grass of a lawn, and dig up worms 

 or grubs of some sort, probably cutworms ; also to eat some 

 sort of plant lice on the branches of trees. 



A good many summer in Monument Valley Park, and then 

 leave in the fall, presumably going up among the houses 

 for the winter, though it is probably there is a partial migration 

 in autumn as there are not as many of the birds around the 

 town in winter as in summer, and they become numerous 

 again in the spring. 



September 24, 1912, a partially albino male House Sparrow 

 was seen near a residence in Colorado Springs. There were 

 one or two white feathers in the right wing, either the last 

 primaries or first secondaries, and one or two of the inside 

 feathers on the right side of the tail were white. When the bird 

 flew these white feathers in the spread wing and partly spread 

 tail made a striking contrast with the rest of the plumage. 

 It was never seen again though often looked for. 



