392 
PERCHING BIRDS. 
is light brown in the centre, bordered with dark brown, and followed by a broad 
whitish brown eyebrow; the wings and tail are blackish brown; the cheeks, 
throat, and under surfaces pale ashy brown; and the lower throat varied with a 
patch of pale yellow. 
The genus Passer contains the true sparrows, which are repre- 
True Sparrows. gen ^ ec j over the greater part of the Old World; and, as restricted 
by Mr. Oates, are characterised by both sexes exhibiting a peculiar pattern upon 
the outer webs of the first primaries. The bill is stout and short, and the 
abbreviated wings fall short of the tail by more than the length of the metatarsus. 
Originally absent from the New World, the true sparrows have been introduced 
into the United States, where they have become a serious pest, their injurious 
character becoming more and more appreciated as the species spreads; they are 
indigenous to the greater part of the Old World, excepting Australia and the 
Moluccan Islands. 
Ho se s arr The house - sparrow (P. domesticus), which nests only too 
' numerously in many country districts, is essentially a dweller among 
men. With the members of its earlier brood ready to leave the nest in May, it 
produces many broods in the season, sometimes evicting the house-martin from its 
mud-plastered home, though occasionally the troublesome intruder is walled up by 
the irate martins. The eggs of the house-sparrow are greenish white in ground¬ 
colour, blotched or spotted with ashy grey and dusky brown. When the young 
are hatched, the old birds redouble their diligence in procuring food. It is 
generally supposed that sparrows feed largely upon insects, and there is no doubt 
that in many districts this is the case for a considerable part of the year. In 
autumn these birds band together in flocks, and, leaving their haunts in street and 
alley, join their country brethren in anticipating the farmer’s harvest. Few 
persons but practical men are at all aware of the vast injury annually inflicted 
upon the farming community by the hordes of sparrows which ravage the corn¬ 
fields. Nor is their mischief limited to assailing standing crops of grain. On the 
contrary, they inflict considerable injury upon gardeners by picking up freshly- 
sown seeds of every kind. They destroy green peas quite as effectually as the 
hawfinch, and are in many other respects most undesirable neighbours. In 
America the influence of the house-sparrow has already proved disastrous to many 
of the indigenous birds, which have been driven from their proper haunts by the 
intruder. Even in remote districts of the Highlands of Scotland, the sparrow is 
gaining ground every year, and taking the place of more welcome guests. The 
sparrow builds a cumbrous nest of straw, hay, dry grass, rags, or any other 
material that comes handy; the nest being often placed in a waterspout, a chink 
of a wall, the thatch of a barn, or the frieze of a building. Occasionally it is 
placed in an open tree or hedgerow, but the nest is then domed as a protection 
against the weather; and it is almost always profusely lined with feathers. 
Taking great pains to maintain its plumage in good condition, the sparrow not 
only indulges in frequent baths, like most of the finch tribe, but in summer shows 
a partiality for dusting its feathers in lark fashion. Sparrows exhibit some pretty 
variations of plumage; all the birds in a brood being occasionally spotted with white, 
or at any rate cream-coloured; male birds in particular being frequently variegated 
