Passer hispaniolensis, Tem.
707. :- Passer salicicolus, Vieill. :- Jerdon's Birds of India, Vol. II, p. 364 ; Murray's Vertebrate Zoology of Sind, p. 183.
THE WILLOW SPARROW.
Length, 5.75 ; wing, 3; tail, 2.
Male, head and back of neck dark chesnut, the feathers edged paler; the mantle blackish, with creamy-white edgings to the feathers; rump and upper tail-coverts pale brown ; shoulder of wing chesnut, with white borders to the lesser-coverts; the rest of the wing dusky, with broad pale rufous-brown edgings, and a whitish bar, formed by the tips of the greater-coverts ; secondaries edged and tipped whitish ; tail dusky with pale edgings ; lores, cheeks, and a narrow supercilium, white, passing into ashy-brown on the ear-coverts ; beneath the chin, throat and breast, black, some of the feathers edged whitish; rest of the lower parts sullied white ; the flanks and under tail-coverts with dusky longitudinal streaks.
The female resembles that of the Common Sparrow, but the striation of the dorsal feathers is less strongly marked.
This Sparrow very closely resembles the last, chiefly differing in the back of the male more resembling that of the female of the Common Sparrow, and in the black of the breast being less defined, and passing into dashes on the flanks.
The Willow Sparrow, within our limits, only occurs in the more northern parts of Sind.
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