210 
FRINGILLIDiE. 
make upon his wheat; lie is, however, too apt to forget 
the services they have done him by the destruction of 
countless caterpillars and grubs, which ought always to 
be considered in extenuation of the evil they are doing. 
In many parishes it has long been usual for the overseers 
to expend a portion of their funds in the destruction of 
Sparrows; there is, however, a parish near Bristol, the 
parish of Shirehampton, in which a subscription is got 
up for the extermination of birds generally, dooming all 
to destruction for the peculation of a few ; by the farmers, 
because in their ignorance they believe many of them to 
be noxious; and by the gentry because a few of them 
take a portion of that fruit which was intended by the 
Creator for the birds as well as them, and because they 
prefer the pleasures of appetite to the sweet music of the 
grove. The Sparrow adapts the form of its nest, with 
singular readiness, to the situation in which it is placed ; 
this is most commonly in the spouts of houses, in old 
walls, sheds, and ruins, when it is very loosely put to¬ 
gether ; sometimes it builds in, or underneath, the nests 
of rooks and magpies ; frequently in ivy against a wall, 
and also in firs and other thick foiiaged trees, when its 
nest is very large and carefully constructed, and covered 
with a dome ; it is composed of a quantity of straw and 
hay, and is thickly lined with feathers. The Sparrow 
lays four or five, and sometimes six, eggs ; these vary 
very much between shades of neutral tint and brown, 
and are occasionally quite white. 
