SPARROW. 483 



attempted to aid them. I therefore had them taken down, but they 

 were so exhausted with their struggles, that they did not long survive ; 

 and a pair of their scolding neighbours took possession of their pre- 

 mises a few days afterwards. 



It is worthy of notice, that they always proportion the quantity of 

 materials to the size of the nest hole, which is generally packed close, 

 leaving only a sufficient cavity for hatching the eggs and rearing the 

 young. I have one of these nests, for example, which could almost 

 be hid in the hollow of the hand, and another, built about a yard from 

 it, which would fill a hat. When the nest is built on a tree, however, 

 it is always nearly of the same dimensions, about a foot in diameter 

 each way. From the bird nestling occasionally in holes, it might be 

 imagined that when it made choice of a tree, it would be on account of 

 thus obtaining a canopy of thick boughs to form a roof ; but, on the 

 contrary, Sparrows, for the most part, select a high, exposed branch, 

 as if they were more anxious to be out of the reach of cats, than of 

 cold winds. I know one of these nests at present, built at the very 

 summit of a pear-tree, on a slender bough, which bends to every breeze. 

 But wherever the nest is placed, a roofing seems to be an indispensable 

 requisite ; and in such a nest as that on the pear-tree, a dome of straw 

 is piled together in the same loose, lumbering, inartificial style of the rest 

 of the structure, an entrance being formed under this in the side, suffi- 

 cient to admit the bird, but not neatly rounded, as is the case in the 

 nests of wrens. When Sparrows build in the ivied wall of a house, as 

 they often do, they do not consider the thick clustering of the leaves 

 above the nest as a sufficiently warm coping ; and in such cases usually, 

 if not always, construct a dome of straw, though much more slight 

 than in nests built on the exposed branches of trees. 



From its anxiety to procure shelter, the Sparrow indeed seizes upon 

 any convenience it can find best adapted to its purpose, whether that 

 be accidental or have been prepared by some other bird. One very 

 cogent reason for this, appears to be its looking forward prospectively to 

 the winter, for Sparrows occupy their nests at night throughout the 

 year, and though they are hardy birds, they require a warm shelter 

 during severe frosts. From its evident preference of houses, I 

 have been surprised at finding it in one or two situations not a little 

 singular, when compared with its ordinary abodes. It often most 

 unceremoniously appropriates the holes which the bank-swallow has 

 been at the trouble of burrowing into a bank. White says " this most 

 usually happens when the swallows breed near hedges and enclosures," 



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