482 SPARROW. 



*This accommodation of the structure of the nest to the locality 

 where it is built, is in no instance, with which we are acquainted, more 

 conspicuous than in the proceedings of the house-sparrow. Dr. Dar- 

 win mentions, seemingly as an extraordinary circumstance, that " in 

 the trees before Mr. Levet's house, in Lichfield, there are annually 

 nests built by Sparrows, a bird which usually builds under the tiles of 

 houses or the thatch of barns but if he had been acquainted with 

 the works of Bonnet, he would have learned that in Switzerland, at 

 least, the Sparrow " most usually {pour V ordinaire) builds near the 

 tops of trees," 2 while its nestling under tiles is an accidental exception. 

 In the vicinity of London also, we venture to say that three pair of 

 Sparrows build on trees to one pair that nestle in holes ; and so com- 

 monly is this noticed, that the tree-sparrow is popularly supposed to 

 be a different species from the house -sparrow. The tree-sparrow 

 {Passer rnontanus) of Yorkshire, is indeed a different species, which 

 lays pale-brown eggs without spots ; but the London ones, which build 

 either on trees or in holes, have not a shade of difference. 



The circumstance which renders these nests most interesting, is 

 their very different conformation when built in a tree, or under the 

 shelter of a roof tile. When a hole is selected, it is first bedded with 

 coarse straw, hay, and sometimes moss, or similar materials, over which 

 is laid feathers, wool, cotton, pieces of ribbon, tangled thread, or what- 

 ever the birds can find to suit their purpose. There is now opposite 

 my windows a faggot of sticks, bound with a piece of old rope, which 

 the Sparrows have been employed half the summer in making into 

 oakum, as a seaman would say, every fibre of loose ends having been 

 carded out by their beaks, and carried off piecemeal. Last summer, a 

 pair of these birds, unfortunately for themselves, carried off from the 

 garden a long piece of bass, which had been tied round a lettuce, for 

 the purpose of blanching it ; but when this had been successfully stowed 

 in the nest under the tiles, it appeared that they had not sufficient 

 skill to work it into the fabric ; and in their endeavours to manage it, 

 both the birds entangled their feet so inextricably in the folds, that 

 they were held close prisoners, one only having line enough to flutter 

 about a foot beyond the entrance. How long they had remained thus 

 entangled I know not, as my attention was called to their situation by 

 the more than ordinary cackling of their neighbour sparrows, who had 

 assembled, it appeared, more to scold the unfortunate pair for their 

 carelessness than to assist them in getting rid of the bass, for not one 



1 Zoonomia, xvi. p. 13. 2. 2 Contempl. de la Nature, pi. xii. Note 6. 



