ROCK SPARROW. 
m 
the extremity of each inner web; under tail coverts fawn-colour, 
with a round patch of white at the extremity of each feather. 
In the adult there is a band of yellow across the neck anteriorly. 
Length six inches; carpus to tip four inches; tail two inches 
and a half; tarsus nine lines; beak eight lines long, and one 
inch and a fifth in circumference at its base. 
The genus Passer is well marked, and has been 
established ever since ornithology was a science. Notices 
of it may he found in the writings of Gesner, Wil- 
loughby, Aldrovandus, and Ray, and it was finally 
determined by Brisson, in his “Ornithologia,” published 
in 1760. Cuvier suggested the name of Pyrgyta in- 
stead, and in some few works he has been followed, 
very much against the true interests of science. 
Bonaparte, following Schlegel and others, adopts 
Brisson ’s genus with some restrictions, and with his 
usual fondness for converting specific into generic 
names, he has followed Kaup by placing the subject 
of the present notice in a separate genus under the 
name of Petronia rupestris. 
The Rock Sparrow is an inhabitant of the warm 
and temperate regions of Europe, namely, Spain, the 
south of France, Sardinia, and the whole of Italy. In 
the south of France it is very common in Anjou, the 
Pyrenees, and the Basses Alps. It is found occasionally 
in Lorraine, and several individuals are stated by 
Degland to have been captured in the neighbourhood 
of Paris, and one female at Lille, in October, 1839. 
It is rare in the north of France and Switzerland, 
and is only occasionally found solitary in the west and 
south of Germany, viz., the Rhinegau, Wetherau, and 
several other places on the Rhine. Naumann says it 
has been shot in Thuringia, but not, to his knowledge 
VOL. III. 
