SPARROW. 485 



indeed, return frequently in the course of the summer to quarrel with 

 the Sparrows, and often wheeling- about for a day or two ; but they never 

 attempted to enter the nests, or to shut them up with mortar. 1 The 

 whole account, indeed, I should say, is a romancing legend ; for the 

 Sparrows, with their strong bills, would instantly demolish the thickest 

 wall which the swallows could build, instead of quietly permitting 

 themselves to be imprisoned, as the above veracious writers have chosen 

 to report. 



I may mention that another of its chosen stations is a rookery, where 

 no one who had previously observed it burrowing in a sand-pit among 

 bank-swallows, or creeping like a garret-mouse under the tiles or thatch 

 of a house, could have expected to find it associating with rooks upon 

 the loftiest elms around a manor-house. Yet in such situations Spar- 

 rows are very often seen rearing their offspring contiguous to their 

 more powerful neighbours, the rooks, who seem to take no offence at 

 the Sparrows, either because they are too insignificant, or because they 

 may relish their incessant yelping as a good concerto accompaniment to 

 their own no less continuous cawing. One thing, we believe, is cer- 

 tain, that a Sparrow never ventures (at least during the breeding- 

 season) to nestle in the interior of any rook's nest which has not been 

 abandoned, and is contented with building under shelter of the large 

 structure, either immediately below, or to leeward. In winter, however, 

 when the rooks do not come to the rookery, the Sparrows, as we have 

 remarked, are not so ceremonious in keeping their distance, thinking 

 themselves at liberty to roost in the warmest nests they can select. In 

 the rookery at Lee, I have observed them throughout the winter 

 assembling every night at sun-set, squabbling together for nearly an 

 hour as if to settle their claims to particular nests belonging to the 

 absent rooks. 



I am not aware that any contrivance is resorted to in Britain, to en- 

 tice birds to build in particular places, except in the case of the house- 

 sparrow. In the vicinity of London more particularly, pots of unglazed 

 delf ware of a sub-oval shape, with a narrow hole for an entrance, are 

 fixed upon the walls of houses, several feet below the eave, and the 

 Sparrows finding a domicile so suited to their habits, very soon take 

 possession of every pot thus provided for them. But those who are so 

 careful to accommodate the Sparrows, do it not because they are fond 

 of their neighbourhood or their yelping concerts, but to prevent their 



1 Oiseaux, Art. La Hirondelle. 



