SPARROW. 
483 
attempted to aid them. I therefore had them taken down, but they 
were so exhausted with their striig’g’les, that they did not long- survive; 
and a pair of their scolding- neighbours took possession of their pre- 
mises a few days afterwards. 
It is worthy of notice, that they always proportion the quantity of 
materials to the size of the nest hole, which is g-enerally packed close, 
leaving- only a sufficient cavity for hatching the eggs and rearing the 
young. I have one of these nests, for example, which could almost 
be hid in the hollow of the hand, and another, built about a yard from 
it, which would fill a hat. When the nest is built on a tree, however, 
it is always nearly of the same dimensions, about a foot in diameter 
each way. From the bird nestling occasionally in holes, it might be 
imagined that when it made choice of a tree, it would be on account of 
thus obtaining a canopy of thick boughs to form a roof ; but, on the 
contrary. Sparrows, for the most part, select a high, exposed branch, 
as if they were more anxious to be out of the reach of cats, than of 
cold winds. I know one of these nests at present, built at the very 
summit of a pear-tree, on a slender bough, which bends to every breeze. 
But wherever the nest is placed, a roofing seems to be an indispensable 
requisite ; and in such a nest as that on the pear-tree, a dome of straw 
is piled together in the same loose, lumbering, inartificial style of the rest 
of the structure, an entrance being formed under this in the side, suffi- 
cient to admit the bird, but not neatly rounded, as is the case in the 
nests of wrens. When Sparrows build in the ivied wall of a house, as 
they often do, they do not consider the thick clustering of the leaves 
above the nest as a sufficiently warm coping ; and in such cases usually, 
if not always, construct a dome of straw, though much more slight 
than in nests built on the exposed branches of trees. 
From its anxiety to procure shelter, the Sparrow indeed seizes upon 
any convenience it can find best adapted to its purpose, whether that 
be accidental or have been prepared by some other bird. One very 
cogent reason for this, appears to be its looking forward prospectively to 
the winter, for Sparrows occupy their nests at night throughout the 
year, and though they are hardy birds, they require a warm shelter 
during severe frosts. From .its evident preference of houses, I 
have been surprised at finding it in one or two situations not a little 
singular, when compared with its ordinary abodes. It often most 
unceremoniously appropriates the holes which the bank-swallow has 
been at the trouble of burrowing into a bank. White says ‘‘ this most 
usually happens when the swallows breed near hedges and enclosures,” 
I I 2 
