THE HOUSE-SPARROW. 85 
Persia and Central Asia, India and Ceylon; westwards it is found in Madeira. In 
Africa it occurs from Morocco to the Albert Nyanza. It has been introduced into 
Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, where it has increased to such an 
extent as to be an unbearable nuisance. (Vide Sharpe and Saunders). 
Throughout Great Britain and Ireland, wherever man has made his home, the 
Sparrow has quickly followed his example, even isolated houses usually providing 
a pretext for the presence of this bird, sometimes to the extent of scores of 
individuals. 
The adult male Sparrow in breeding plumage has the crown, nape, and lower 
back slate-grey, slightly washed with olivaceous, but the sides of the nape bright 
chocolate-reddish in continuation of a broad streak from the ear-coverts; upper 
back blackish, each feather broadly bordered with dull chestnut; lesser wing-coverts 
bright chocolate-reddish ; median coverts black, broadly tipped with white so as to 
form a prominent bar across the wing; greater coverts blackish, broadly bordered 
with dull chestnut; primaries blackish-grey, all excepting the first with pale 
chestnut edging to the wider part of the outer web, but the inner primaries with 
this edge continuous; secondaries blackish, with chestnut borders, paler and greyer 
on the inner webs; tail blackish-brown, the feathers edged with whity-brown; a 
narrow white line over the eye; lores black; cheeks, and sides of neck white; 
throat and chest black, sometimes suffused with chocolate; remainder of under 
parts white, ashy at the sides, and brownish on the flanks; beak leaden black; 
feet brown; iris brown. After the autumn moult the male has whitish-ash fringes 
to the feathers of the head and throat, which appear to be very delicate in texture, 
and break away in the spring;* the under parts are also more uniformly ashy, 
the upper parts duller, the wing band yellowish, and the beak becomes yellowish- 
brown. 
The female is duller and browner than the male; the broad borders to the 
feathers of the mantle and back being tawny rather than chestnut; the superciliary 
line and wing bar less pure and conspicuous; the under parts browner, with no 
black on throat and chest. Young birds chiefly differ from the female in their 
paler colouring; the beak is dull yellow. 
In towns the House-Sparrow is a useful bird, inasmuch as it feeds largely on 
oats and other grain which it picks from horse-manure, and which otherwise would 
render the latter less suitable for garden purposes; it also acts as a scavenger, 
eating scraps of all kinds which have been thrown into the gutters, and which if 
not removed in warm weather would soon become offensive. In very dry seasons, 
* This I do not give on the authority of previous writers, although they mention the fact, but on the 
clear evidence of a good skin (in my possession) of a bird which died in the middle of its change of plumage. 
Vor. I. P 
