312 
SPECIES OF BIRDS. 
regard to tlie house sparrow, will shew in what light 
Brehm views species : — 
In Siberia there is a house sparrow, the male of which 
very much resembles that in our own country. The 
Pyrgita rustica of Brehm occurs at Greifeswald, in 
Northern Germany ; it is rather larger than those in 
Central Germany, and has a strong bill, flat crown , 
short feet, and slightly notched tail. In Central Ger- 
many, as at Benthendorf, there are two species of 
sparrow, viz. the town sparrow, Pyrgita pagorum , and 
the high-crowned sparrow, Pyrgita domestica. The 
town sparrow has a rather smaller, and, in winter, 
darker coloured bill, than the North German species, and 
besides, it has a flatly arched crown , and a rather short 
and straight truncated tail ; the high-crowned sparrow 
is characterized by its acutely arched crown. All these 
sparrows have a gray stripe across the middle of th e crown, 
which is least distinct in the high-crowned, and broadest 
in the Siberian. The house sparrow from the neighbour- 
hood of Trieste, Brehm’s Pyrgita media , is intermediate 
as to colour between the German and Italian, for the male 
has, with the exception of a small gray spot in the middle 
of the crown of the head, a completely brown coloured 
crown : in the form of the bill and skull it resembles 
the Pyrgita rustica y found at Greifswald. The Italian 
sparrow forms two species, viz. Pyrgita cisalpina , and 
itala. The first agrees in size, and pretty nearly in form 
of hill, with the German high-crowned sparrow, viz. 
Pyrgita domestica; the other, however, is much smaller, 
the bill more slender, and, it would appear, always 
brown coloured ; in both of them the male has a brown 
crown. In all the species already noticed, the extre- 
mities of the wings are very short. It is otherwise 
with the following species : The Sardinian, which pro- 
bably follows the Spanish, and which Brehm, in the 
meantime, names with Temminck, Pyrgita hispanica , 
has a very strong bill, arched head, and in the male, 
not only, as in all the preceding, a black throat, but also 
black spots on the sides of the belly. In the Egyptian 
sparrow r , Brehm’s Pyrgita cegyptica , the bill is shorter. 
