66 Birds I Have Kept. 



sionally almost black. A white variety is sometimes met 

 ■with, and pied specimens are not particularly rare. 



Although so bold and familiar a bird that in the crowded 

 street it will, when in search of food amongst the refuse, 

 allow a man to come within a foot or two of it before it 

 flies away, I have found the Sparrow practically untamable; 

 specimens that were taken from the nest, and kept in an 

 aviary among a number of perfectly tame birds, foreign and 

 British, remaiued as wild, at the end of two years, as they 

 were when first introduced. Other aviarists, however, have 

 succeeded in taming them, and praise them for their docility, 

 so I suppose there must have been a screw loose in my 

 management somewhere. 



Buffon relates that a soldier owned one of these birds that 

 followed him wherever he went, and recognised him in the 

 midst of the regiment: and Bechstein writes, "The Sparrow 

 may be easily taught to go and come at command, by choosing 

 winter as the time to eflfect it. It is necessary first to keep 

 it a month near the window in a large cage supplied with the 

 best food, such as millet, meal or white bread soaked in milk. 

 It will even go there to deposit its eggs if a small box is 

 placed in the cage, with an opening for it to enter at. Finally, 

 no bird becomes more familiar, or testifies more attachment 

 to its master." 



I have frequently tried to bring Sparrows up by hand, but 

 invariably failed, and the only way I have succeeded in intro- 

 ducLQg them into my collection, has been by taking them 

 when fully fledged, putting them into a cage, hung out of a 

 window, where the old ones came and fed them, until they 

 were able to take care of themselves. 



The song of the Sparrow is a monotonous, not to say dis- 

 agreeable, twittering; but if taken when young, and placed 

 in the company of other birds, it wiU pick up some of their 

 notes; for instance, a cock Sparrow I kept in a garden aviary 

 for a couple of years learned to imitate the warbling of the 



