THE MALAYAN TREE SPAEROW 
Passer fiioHfiiuiiS maiaccensis {Dubois) 
Malay name : —Pipit. 
Description: — The plumage of the local tree sparrow is 
to all intents and puqioses the same as that of the familiar 
tree-sparrow of the Eiiglisl) lanes. 
The top of the head is chestnut, the upper parts pale brown 
streaked with dark brown and black. The chin and throat are 
black forming a "bib": the lower parts are greyish tinged 
here and there with pale brown. 
The female is like the male. 
The irides are brown ^ the bill black and the feet pale brown. 
Length between 5^ and 6 inches; wing 2^ inches. 
Disiribtition: — The Malayan tree-sparrow is found only 
in Malaysia but the sparrows of China^ Siberia and Japan are 
very closely allied indeed and both these fonns are yet again 
%^ery little different from the tree-sparrow of Europe of which 
latter species they are but certainly only local races. 
[The house sparrow of Europe is in most far Eastern 
countries replaced bysomekindof so-called tree-si)arrow whkh 
though it seems to hold the* field where it occurs is not so 
pug-nacious or noisy as the "feathered raf of England. Owing 
to slight variations in plumage due no doubt to geographical 
separation experts recognise several sub-species, of which the 
Malayan bird is one. In England where it is pretty common 
it nests in trees and does not frequent houses in the same way 
as does its there more abundant cousin : and hence no aoubt 
its name: hut in Singapore it has all the habits of its ally and 
may be seen and heard e%^erywhere — on house-tops, on the 
road, in farm -yards and so forth — and is rather a nuisance: 
it will also nest almost anywhere and eat almost anything. The 
nest is the usual clumsy untidy mass of straw and feathers, 
paper and string and it lays usually five or six white eggs 
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