SPARROW. 
485 
indeed, return frequently in the course of the summer to quarrel with 
the Sparrows, and often wheeling- about for a day or two ; but they never 
attempted to enter the nests, or to shut them up with mortard The 
whole account, indeed, I should say, is a romancing- legend ; for the 
Sparrows, with their strong bills, would instantly demolish the thickest 
wall which the swallows could build, instead of quietly permitting 
themselves to be imprisoned, as the above veracious writers have chosen 
to report. 
I may mention that another of its chosen stations is a rookery, where 
no one who had previously observed it burrowing in a sand-pit among 
bank-swallows, or creeping like a garret-mouse under the tiles or thatch 
of a house, could have expected to find it associating with rooks upon 
the loftiest elms around a manor-house. Yet in such situations Spar- 
rows are very often seen rearing their offspring contiguous to their 
more powerful neighbours, the rooks, who seem to take no offence at 
the Sparrows, either because they are too insignificant, or because they 
may relish their incessant yelping as a good concerto accompaniment to 
their own no less continuous cawing. One thing, we believe, is cer- 
tain, that a Sparrow never ventures (at least during the breeding- 
season) to nestle in the interior of any rook’s nest which has not been 
abandoned, and is contented with building- under shelter of the large 
structure, either immediately below, or to leeward. In winter, however, 
when the rooks do not come to the rookery, the Sparrows, as we have 
remarked, are not so ceremonious in keeping their distance, thinking 
themselves at liberty to roost in the warmest nests they can select. In 
the rookery at Lee, I have observed them throughout the winter 
assembling every night at sun-set, squabbling together for nearly an 
hour as if to settle their claims to particular nests belonging to the 
absent rooks. 
I am not aware that any contrivance is resorted to in Britain, to en- 
tice birds to build in particular places, except in the case of the house- 
sparrow. In the vicinity of London more particularly, pots of unglazed 
delf ware of a sub-oval shape, with a narrow hole for an entrance, are 
fixed upon the walls of houses, several feet below the eave, and the 
Sparrows finding a domicile so suited to their habits, very soon take 
possession of every pot thus provided for them. But those who are so 
careful to accommodate the Sparrows, do it not because they are fond 
of their neighbourhood or their yelping concerts, but to prevent their 
‘ Oiseaux, Art. La Hirondelle. 
