482 
SPARROW. 
*This accommodation of the structure of the nest to the locality 
where it is built, is in no instance, with which we are acquainted, more 
conspicuous than in the proceedings of the house-sparrow. Dr. Dar- 
win mentions, seemingly as an extraordinary circumstance, that “ in 
the trees before Mr. Levet’s house, in Lichfield, there are annually 
nests built by Sparrows, a bird which usually builds under the tiles of 
houses or the thatch of barns hut if he had been acquainted with 
the works of Bonnet, he would have learned that in Switzerland, at 
least, the Sparrow ‘‘ most usually (^pour V ordinaire) builds near the 
tops of trees,”^ while its nestling under tiles is an accidental exception. 
In the vicinity of London also, we venture to say that three pair of 
Sparrows build on trees to one pair that nestle in holes ; and so com- 
monly is this noticed, that the tree-sparrow is popularly supposed to 
be a different species from the house -sparrow. The tree-sparrow 
{^Passer montanus) of Yorkshire, is indeed a different species, which 
lays pale-brown eggs without spots ; but the London ones, which build 
either on trees or in holes, have not a shade of difference. 
The circumstance which renders these nests most interesting, is 
their very different conformation when built in a tree, or under the 
shelter of a roof tile. When a hole is selected, it is first bedded with 
coarse straw, hay, and sometimes moss, or similar materials, over which 
is laid feathers, wool, cotton, pieces of ribbon, tangled thread, or what- 
ever the birds can find to suit their purpose. There is now opposite 
my windows a faggot of sticks, bound with a piece of old rope, which 
the Sparrows have been employed half the summer in making into 
oakum, as a seaman would say, every fibre of loose ends having been 
carded out by their beaks, and carried off piecemeal. Last summer, a 
pair of these birds, unfortunately for themselves, carried off from the 
garden a long piece of bass, which had been tied round a lettuce, for 
the purpose of blanching it ; but when this had been successfully stowed 
in the nest under the tiles, it appeared that they had not sufficient 
skill to work it into the fabric ; and in their endeavours to manage it, 
both the birds entangled their feet so inextricably in the folds, that 
they were held close prisoners, one only having line enough to flutter 
about a foot beyond the entrance. How long they had remained thus 
entangled I know not, as my attention was called to their situation by 
the more than ordinary cackling of their neighbour sparrows, who had 
assembled, it appeared, more to scold the unfortunate pair for their 
carelessness than to assist them in getting rid of the bass, for not one 
’ Zoonomia, xvi. p. 13. 2. 
^ Contempl. de la Nature, pi. xii. Note 6. 
