Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds 



Unlike most of the sparrows, the little chippy frequents high 

 trees, where its nest is built quite as often as in the low bushes 

 of the garden. The horse-hair, which always lines the grassy 

 cup that holds its greenish-blue, speckled eggs, is alone responsi- 

 ble for the name hair-bird; and not the chippy's hair-like trill, as 

 some suppose. 



English Sparrow 



(Passer domesticus) Finch family 



Called also: HOUSE SPARROW 



Length — 6.33 inches. 



Male — Ashy above, with black and chestnut stripes on back and 

 shoulders. Wings have chestnut and white bar, bordered 

 by faint black line. Gray crown, bordered from the eye 

 backward and on the nape by chestnut. Middle of throat 

 and breast black. Underneath grayish white. 



Female — Paler; wing-bars indistinct, and without the black mark- 

 ing on throat and breast. 



Range — Around the world. Introduced and naturalized in Amer- 

 ica, Australia, New Zealand. 



Migrations — Constant resident. 



"Of course, no self-respecting ornithologist will condescend 

 to enlarge his list by counting in the English sparrow— too pes- 

 tiferous to mention," writes Mr. H. E. Parkhurst, and yet of all 

 bird neighbors is any one more within the scope of this book 

 than the audacious little gamin that delights in the companion- 

 ship of humans even in their most noisy city thoroughfares } 



In a bulletin issued by the Department of Agriculture it is 

 shown that the progeny of a single pair of these sparrows might 

 amount to 275,716,983,698 in ten years! Inasmuch as many 

 pairs were liberated in the streets of Brooklyn, New York, in 

 185 1, when the first importation was made, the day is evidently 

 not far off when these birds, by no means meek, "shall inherit 

 the earth." 



In Australia Scotch thistles, English sparrows, and rabbits, 

 three most unfortunate importations, have multiplied with equal 

 rapidity until serious alarm fills the minds of the colonists. But 

 in England a special committee appointed by the House of Com- 



151 



