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We may therefore assume that the female and young of the house-sparrow approximately shew us the plumage of the progenitor of the genus.
Another cage, apart from all the rest, held an inmate that; so far as appearance went, you would have said had no right to be thus distinguished in having a house all to himself. He was of a sober grey colour, somewhat of the wagtail shape, with long black legs, and claws of a dirty hue; and was altogether an ill-favoured bird, not any better-looking than a common house-sparrow.
"I wonder if you childer can tell me what is t' bird that ligs abed langest?" There was silence for a moment or two, and then Kester Laycock suggested rooks. "Nay," answered Grannie, "rooks are not what I sud call early risers, but they're not t' last birds up, not by a lang way. T' last bird to wakken up an' t' first bird to gan to bed is t' house-sparrow.
Imagine a house-sparrow shorn of sixty per cent. of his impudence, and you will have arrived at a fair estimate of the character of the tree-sparrow. The only other members of the Finch family that concern us are the buntings. A bunting is a rather superior kind of sparrow a Lord Curzon among sparrows a sparrow with a refined beak. The familiar English yellowhammer is a bunting.
The Martin suffers a similar kind of persecution from the House-Sparrow, and here again there is reason to believe that the greater virility of the Sparrow will hasten the extinction of its rival.
After being silent for awhile, it often begins with the chue, chue of the House-Sparrow, so exactly imitated in every respect that were it not for what follows, no one would suppose it to be any other bird.
It is a dull green bird with some yellow on the head, neck, and back; the abdomen is of a brighter hue of yellow. The house-sparrow, like the house-crow, is a bird of the plains rather than of the hills. The cock is easily recognised by his bright cinnamon-coloured head and shoulders.
There are little birds that frequent the houses, that might be called Jereed sparrows, and which the Arabs name boo-habeeba, or "friend of my father;" but their dress and language are very different, having reddish breasts, being of a small size, and singing prettily. Shaw mentions them under the name of the Capsa-sparrow, but he is quite wrong in making them as large as the common house-sparrow.
The very birds which rise from the clover or wheat, and nest in the trees or hedgerows of furze or quickset, are for the most part English the skylark, the blackbird, finches, green and gold, thrushes, starlings, and that eternal impudent vagabond the house-sparrow.
In the early morning, before the house-sparrow has chirped himself and his family into wakefulness, you catch the doleful and long-drawn cry of the early Fakir or Mahomedan beggar, whose object is not so much to wake the Faithful and bid them remember "the prayer that is better than sleep" as to be the earliest bird to catch the mouthful of Moslem charity.
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