ROCK SPARROW. 
125 
its young into orchards, giving them the fleshy part, 
and then cracking the stone for the kernel with its 
strong beak. When it catches large insects it bites 
off the head, wings, and legs, and eats the body in 
small pieces. It differs from other Sparrows in prefer- 
ing oily to farinaceous seeds. 
The Hock Sparrow nests in the Rhine country, 
in the neighbourhood of Wiesbaden especially. They 
build in high fruit trees, or in the holes of ruins of 
old castles and watch-towers. They pick out a nar- 
row and deep fissure in the walls, generally pretty 
high up ; they never build in woods. They will 
return year after year to the same hole, and, like 
other Sparrows, young and old sleep in them together. 
The nest is like that of the House Sparrow; there 
is a great heap of straw and stalks of grass, with 
fine rootlets and other fibres of plants, old rags, and 
thread, and it is lined Avith hair, \yorsted, wool, and 
feathers in abundance. It is ahvays placed so deeply 
in the hole that the materials cannot be seen outside. 
It appears from the authority of Brehm that they 
only lay two or three eggs. Naumann, however, thinks 
this is a local peculiarity and not general. The eggs 
are very similar to those of the House Sparrow, but 
larger, and equally as various. The ground colour is 
a cloudy white, with ash-grey and brown dots marked 
over with streaks and spots, through which much of 
the ground colour appears. Those slightly marked 
have often greater spots, others mostly small streaks 
running over them, and the markings are generally 
most numerous at the larger end. The grey marking 
varies into brighter and darker, and the brown 
changes from yellowish to reddish grey brown, and 
even almost into blackish hroAvn or slate-colour. 
