In the spring of 1900 the grass was covered for many days together with some kind of little black fly, and sparrows a dozen or so at a time with blackbirds, thrushes and chaffinches found a continual feast in them. I noticed again and again quite a big round ball of them collected and carried away by a thrush. It has often been noticed that sparrows are more eager than most birds in hunting for aphides, and I have seen a sparrow make short work of a "daddy-long-legs." In July and August I have watched them catching flies on the grass, running after them much as a wagtail does, indeed once I remember seeing a sparrow and a wagtail on the lawn at the same time, each followed by a young bird whose hunger they were trying to satisfy with flies caught in similar fashion. Impudence is a marked characteristic of a sparrow. I have seen a starling at work in his busy, methodical way, closely followed all over the lawn by a sparrow. There he was all the time, close at the starling's elbow and ready to pounce upon whatever dainty morsel a skill superior to his own might bring to light. The starling was plainly bored by his company, but the sparrow would take no hint, and maintained his position in spite even of pointed rebuffs from the other's beak. (In the dry summer of 1911 I noticed at different times both a throstle and a blackbird attended in the same way by a sparrow.) At another time when a starling has arrived with food in its mouth, and not daring on account of my being there to take it into its nest, has begun, after the usual unwise custom of starlings, loudly to advertise the situation, I have seen two sparrows, attracted by the noise he made, take up positions one on either side and try to snatch the food away from him. I saw this happen twice on two successive days in June, 1901. The dusting habit of sparrows must be counted among their many iniquities when they indulge in it, as they often do, in a bed of newly-sown seeds, but it was strange to see one dusting during the hard frost of 1895; one should have thought that they were so out of the way of dusting in winter that no sparrow would have taken advantage of the rare opportunity when a long dry frost made it possible. One day in April, 1899, a sparrow that was sitting on the food-stand close by my window made quite a song of his chirping. There was a kind of modulation of notes, continuously uttered and accompanied by a regular "beating time" movement of his tail. On another occasion I have heard a sparrow sitting alone on the ridge of a roof, singing, one could only call it, quite a little song in subdued tones. VIII. FINCHES, STARLINGS AND CROWS. The spruce, handsome chaffinch (in Cheshire "pied finch") is with us all the year round, and his song here, as I suppose everywhere, is one of the most familiar of the pleasant voices of spring.