GLEANINGS. 



405 



A sparrow found in a bank. — The notice of your having found a 

 cock starling frozen to death in a hole in Copenhagen-fields, as stated in 

 your new volume upon the " Habits of Birds/' caused me to smile with 

 surprise upon reading it, it being a singular coincidence, that it is 

 exactly similar in every particular, except as regards its being frozen, 

 and of a different species, to a circumstance noticed by myself. About 

 four years ago, in the same fields above named, I observed, one cold 

 evening in March, a bird apparently disabled in its flight, nV past me 

 and enter a hole in a bank ; I was then more of a novice in natural 

 history, yet I had lately read with pleasure and attention, that book 

 which we one and all so much admire and value, " White's Nat. Hist, 

 of Selborne ; " but I took particular interest in the statements, pro and 

 con, contained therein, relative to the long pending question as to 

 whether sw allows conceal themselves in caves and holes during winter 

 or not, and as I had not been able to come to any decided opinion upon 

 the subject, on account of the various statements appearing equally 

 entitled to credit, I now upon seeing my bird (which I conceived was a 

 swallow), run into this hole, felt much rejoiced (as every naturalist 

 does when he anticipates a discovery), at the idea that it was now 

 within my power to decide this question, or at least to satisfy myself 

 upon the subject, by ocular demonstration, with which view I ran up 

 to the bank, and having stopped up every hole, except that at which it 

 entered, I proceeded to dig into it with the hope of disinterring the 

 object of my attention, but I had not reached a greater depth than three 

 feet, when the darkness of the hour obliged me to suspend my operations 

 until next morning; so having taken the precaution of stopping up the 

 hole to prevent its egress in my absence, I retired and returned home. 

 Early next morning I was upon the spot, and after having dug to a 

 considerable depth, I at length spied the tail, and when in a few 

 minutes the remainder of the bird was released from the earth, I was 

 not quite so pleased to find it was merely a hen sparrow. Upon exa- 

 mining it closely, I could not discover any bruises or any other 

 appearance of hurt, and unless a small species of mite (somewhat 

 similar to that found upon the field mouse), with which it was infested, 

 could have weakened it, and have rendered its safety endangered by 

 remaining above ground, I could find no cause for its retiring into so 

 singular a place for a bird of its species to enter. If one might indulge 

 such an idea, one might suppose that it was some poor disconsolate 

 widowed bird, who, following the custom observed by the females of 



