TREE SPARROW. 
71 
when they frequent, together with them, the usual places of 
resort for the procuring of food, namely, farm-yards, and 
other situations where it is to be obtained. 
Their flight is rather heavy, slow, and strained, as if the 
wings were not sufficiently equal to the carriage of the body 
through the air. They often progress along the ground in 
the same sort of sidelong manner that the Common Sparrow 
does; and they have also a habit of flirting the tail slightly 
about, especially when they first alight. 
The food of this species consists of insects and the tender 
parts of vegetables; these in the spring and summer, their 
‘second course’ being grain and seeds: with the former the 
young are fed. 
The common note of the Tree Sparrow is a monotonous 
chirp, not unlike that, so well known, of the House Sparrow, 
but more shrill; and of jts higher vocal powers, Mr. Edward 
Blyth says that it consists of a number of these chirps, 
intermixed with some pleasing notes, delivered in a continuous 
strain, sometimes for many minutes together, very loudly, 
but having a characteristic Sparrow-like tone throughout. 
James Dalton, Esq., of Worcester College, Oxford, informs 
me that he has taken the nest of this bird from a Sand 
Martin’s hole, near Buckingham. They build in many various 
situations, most frequently in a hole of a tree, whence their 
English name, either that; formed naturally by decay, or that 
in which some other bird, such as the Woodpecker, or one of 
the species has previously domiciled; sometimes also, in old 
nests that had been inhabited by Magpies and Crows; and 
in these cases, the nest, that is that of the Tree Sparrow, 
is domed over, as is also that of the House Sparrow, when 
it locates its habitation in similar situations. Hot unfrequently 
they build in the thatch of barns and outhouses, but only in 
thoroughly country places, the entrance being from the outside; 
also in the tiling of houses, and in stacks and wood faggots; 
likewise in old walls not many feet above the ground. Arthur 
Strickland, Esq., of Bridlington Quay, has recorded that a 
pair built their nest, a domed one, in a hedge in the grounds 
of Walton Hall. 
Hidification, it would appear, commences in February, and 
incubation in March, two or three broods being reared in 
the year. 
The nest is formed of hay, and is lined with wool, down, 
and feathers. It is loosely put together, and the consequence 
