518 TREE SPARROW. 



mounting in the air, it either returns to the ground or pitches on some 

 low bush. The Tree Pipit generally makes a nest amongst the high 

 grass or green wheat, and resides wholly in the more cultivated parts, 

 and that only where there are trees. The nest is composed of dry 

 grass, fibrous plants, and sometimes a little moss, and lined with fine 

 dry grass and horse-hair. The eggs are four in number, of a dirty 

 bluish white, thickly blotched, and spotted with purplish brown. 



We have found this bird as far west as Devonshire, but rarely in 

 Cornwall ; also in the westernmost parts of South Wales, and in most 

 of the southern parts of England ; but n® where so plentiful as in the 

 north of Wiltshire. 



TREE SPARROW (Passer montanus, Ray.) 



* Fringilla montana, Linn. Syst. I. p. 234. 37.— Gmel. Syst. 1. p. 925. sp. 27.— 



Lath. Ind. Orn. 1. p. 433. sp. 2 Passer montanus, Raii, Syn. p. 87. 15. — 



Briss. 3. p. 79. — Loxia Hamburgia, Gmel. Syst. 1. p. 854. sp. 68. — Le Friquet, 

 Buff. Ois. 3. p. 489. t. 29. f. 2.— Ib. pi. Enl. 267. fig. 1.— La Hamboureux, 

 Buff. Ois. 4. p. 398.— Gros-Bec Friquet, Temm. Man. d'Orn. 1. p. 354.— Der 



Feldsperling, Bechst. Naturg. Deut. 3. p. 124 Meyer, Tasschenb. Deut. 1. 



p. 158 — Frisch, Vog. t. 7. f. 2. male. — De Ringmusch, Sepp. Nederl. Vog. p. 

 79. — Hamburgh Tree-Creeper, Albin, 3. t. 24. — Hamburgh Grosbeak, Lath. 

 Syn. 3. p. 149. 64.— Tree, or Mountain Sparrow, Br. Zool. 1. No. 128.— Arct. 



Zool. 2. No. 246.— Will. (Angl.) p. 252. t. 25.— Lewin's Br. Birds, 2. t. 78 



Lath. Syn. 3. p. 252. 2 Ib. Supp Don. Br. Birds, 4. t. 88 Bewick's Br. 



Birds, 1. p. 158.— Shaw's Zool. 9. p. 432. t. 64. f. 2,—Selby, pi. 55. fig. 2. p. 

 267.* 



This species is rather less than the house sparrow ; length five inches 

 and a half. Bill black ; irides greyish hazel. The head and nape chest- 

 nut ; chin black ; a spot of the same colour behind the eye ; the upper 

 parts of the body rufous-brown, spotted with black, inclining to greenish 

 towards the rump ; sides of the neck, the breast, and under parts, 

 dusky white ; wing coverts rufous, edged with black, and crossed with 

 two bars of white ; the greater coverts black, with ferruginous edges ; 

 quills blackish, with rufous edges ; tail even at the end, colour rufous- 

 brown ; legs pale yellow. 



This species may be considered as one of the most local of our indi- 

 genous birds ; and is, we suspect, by no means plentiful in any part of 

 England ; but as the circumstance of house sparrows sometimes making 

 their nest in trees, has occasioned an opinion that they are a different 

 species, and have frequently been entitled Tree Sparrow, it is extremely 

 difficult to trace the true Passer montanus. 



The Tree Sparrow appears to be much inferior in size to the house 

 sparrow, although the difference in weight is only about a dram, this 

 being six drams ; and the length is inferior by half an inch, being five 

 inches and a half ; with no discrimination of sexes b^ size, or by 



