268 PASSERS. FRINGILLA. SParnnow. 
p- 252. 2._Id. Supp.—Don, Br. Birds, 4. t. 88.—Bewick’s Br. Birds, 1. 
p:. 158.—Shaw’s Zool. 9. p. 432. t. 64. f 2. 
This species is but partially distributed, and far from being 
abundant, even in those districts where it has long been known 
as indigenous, although many authors have asserted the con- 
trary, and have described it as numerous in Lincolnshire, 
Yorkshire, and Lancashire. It may indeed be found in each 
of these counties, but not in such numbers as might naturally 
be inferred from the accounts of preceding writers. Movy- 
TaGuU, im the Supplement to his Ornithological Dictionary, 
has given a very minute and interesting description of the 
peculiar habits of this bird, and has proved that the female 
is in plumage not distinguishable from the male bird, although 
former writers had described it as differing in the same de- 
. gree as the female of the common sparrow does from the male 
Locality. 
Nest, &c. 
Food. 
of that species. 
fab i p 1 : 
Ihe eastern, and some of the northern counties seem to 
be the extent of its range in this country, as I have not been 
able to trace its residence in any of the southern or western 
ones. Specimens have been sent to me from the neighbour- 
hood of Cambridge, and I have seen it in parts of the county 
‘of Durham, but not farther to the northward. It is a bird 
of retired habits, and is never found to frequent villages or 
other dwellings like the common species, but is generally to 
be met with where old trees (particularly pollards, hollowed 
by decay) are abundant, as in the holes of these it finds a 
congenial retreat, and proper situation for its nest, of which 
the materials are hay and straw intermixed, with a lining of 
feathers. 
The eggs are four or five im number, similar in colour to 
those of the house-sparrow, but rather smaller.—'The food of 
this species consists of various seeds and grain, and the buds 
of trees; but during the breeding season it destroys quanti- 
ties of larvee, moths, and others of the insect tribe, on which 
its callow young are principally supported.—Its form is more 
slender than that of the preceding bird, and its motions full 
of spirit and activity ; like it also, the tree-sparrow possesses 
