602 
PASSEE DOMESTICUS. 
Indian birds, wliich is chiefly apparent in the females, and the slight alteration in colour, is owing entirely to 
food and climatic influence. 
Indian and Ceylonese examples are identical. A male from Madras in my collection measures in the wing 3-0o inches, 
and has the wliite cheek-patch and the under surface as much tinged with grey as in European birds. Specimens 
from Ceylon, and, as far as I have seen them, from India, have only a trace of the little white spot above and 
behind the eye and of the white edging above the lores ; it is always more or less present, which, inasmuch as it 
is such an obscure characteristic even in the European bird, more than any thing, I think, tends to prove the 
identity of the two races. In England I find that the Sparrow varies in size, depending to a certain extent, as 
it would appear to me, on conditions of food. The largest birds I have seen are from farmyards in the country, 
where an abundant sustenance is afforded them. Eive males in my possession measure from 2'9 to 3'05 inches 
in the wing, and females from 2'9 to 3'0. 
Mr.'Dresser, in his great work on European birds, unites the two forms, and Messrs. Hume and Blanford are likewise 
of opinion that the Indian bird cannot correctly be specifically separated. 
Distribution . — As in other countries, the House-Sparrow is found about human habitations in almost 
every town and village in Ceylon. It evidently was formerly only an inhabitant of the maritime and large 
inland cities and villages of the natives, and probably affected the settlements in the valleys of the Kandyan 
province ; thence it continued to follow the march of Europeans into the hills, during the opening up of the 
mountain forests from one elevation to another, until it has now established itself at Nuwara Elliya and is 
common there. Mr. Holdsworth remarks, in his catalogue, that old residents at the Sanatarium remember 
the time when ^^the now common Sparrows and Musquitos wei’e unknown at that elevation. I have no 
doubt that when the solitudes of the Horton Plains are invaded, and the many allotments now marked out are 
studded with bungalows, the Sparrow will make itself as much at home there as he has done in the somewhat 
lower plain of Nuwara Elliya. I have visited villages in the interior of the northern forest tract wEcre there 
were no Sparrows ; but it is found at Anaradjapura, and I think all along the Northern road. Mr. Parker 
tells me it inhabits the villages in the Uswewa district. 
It is generally diffused all over India, from the extreme south to the Himalayas, where Mi . Erooks 
found it above Mussouri, not differing at all from its companions of the plains. It is abundant in Sindh, and 
throughout the Kattiawar, Kutch, Guzerat, and Sambhur-Lake districts. In the Deccan it is, of course, common, 
and found everywhere around human habitations ; it occurs on the Nilghiris and in the villages in the Palanis 
up to 5000 feet elevation {Fairbank ) . It is of course very numerous throughout Bengal, but gradually gets 
more local in its distribution as we travel to the eastward. In Cachar Mr. Iiiglis did not notice it ; but it 
is found throughout Pegu, according to Mr. Oates, and Mr. Blyth says it is not uncommon at Akyab in 
Arracan. At Rangoon Mr. Hume says it is as common as Passer montanus (ivliich replaces it to the south) , 
and occasionally strays over to Moulmein in the Tenasserim province ; but south of this it has not been 
procured or seen by Mr. Davison and others collecting in the province. Crawford is said to have procured 
it in Siam. 
At some distant period it has, if not originally indigenous to the country, perhaps invaded India from 
Beluchistan and Persia, which it inhabits plentifully, although it is not universally distributed through Western 
Asia to Europe; it is, however, says Professor Newton, the common species of the Levant. As regards 
Palestine, Canon Tristram remarks, “ The Sparrow of the Syrian cities is our own P. domesticus, which in 
his westward migrations has acquired neither additional impudence, assurance, nor voracity.” Severtzoff 
records it from Yarkand, though Dr. Scully did not see it there or anywhere in Eastern Turkestan. In Siberia, 
as I have observed already, it is found, but only in certain localities : on the river Ob, Dr. Pinsch observed it 
only near cattle-stations ; in the town of Berezoff it occurred, but not in Obdorsk. Purther east, Mr. Seebohm 
states that it abounds in all the towns and villages as far as Yenesaisk, and he met with it once at Kooray-i-ka, 
within the arctic circle, although it had entirely disappeared about latitude 60°. Beyond the Yenesay it ranges 
as far east, according to Dr. von Middeudorft’, as list Strelka, the confluence of the Chilka and Argun rivers, 
which there join to form the Amour. Between this point and the Chinese Empire (the very place, above all 
others, suited for it) the solitudes of Mongolia must present a bar to its advance. It is found near Lake 
Baikal, straying thence to the island of Olchon [Dresser ) . 
In Northern Africa it is resident in Egypt and Nubia, and is abundant there; Mr. E. C. Taylor found it 
