Distribution and habitat

Nest at Sultanpur National Park in India

The Sind sparrow has a restricted distribaution, primarily occurring within the Indus valley of
Pakistan, and the lower parts of the tributaries of the Indus in the Punjab region. Its
distribution extends from the Indus Delta north to the Kabul River near Nowshera and the
Jhelum near Nurpur Noon, extending east into India as far as the Delhi area.
[30][31]
It also
breeds locally in parts of Pakistan's western province of Balochistan,
[32][30]
and has been
recorded several times in south-eastern Iran.
[33][34]
The Sind sparrow is somewhat common in
its restricted breeding range,
[32]
and no threats are known to the survival of the species, so it is
assessed as least concern on the IUCN Red List.
[1]

During winter, it often makes short distance movements, and some birds move into parts of
western Pakistan and an adjoining corner of Iran, and less commonly north-western Gujarat,
India.
[3][32][35]
Longer movements may occur, as suggested by a possible sighting in the
United Arab Emirates in November 2000.
[26]

It mostly breeds in acacia and tamarisk scrub and tall grass, invariably near rivers or other
wetlands.
[36]
The construction and expansion of irrigation canals has increased its habitat in
Sindh, and helped it extend its range into the Yamuna floodplain and parts of Rajasthan,
India.
[31][32][37]
It may breed around rice paddies and other fields, or human habitations,
provided that there is enough cover and suitable nesting sites. In winter, it moves away from
its main riverine habitat, and into drier thickets characterised by Salvadora and Capparis
bushes, but never moves too far from water.
[30]

Behaviour
The Sind sparrow is gregarious, generally forming small groups of four to six birds while
feeding. It tends to breed in loose colonies of a few pairs, and non-breeding birds may gather
to roost in acacias or tamarisks near water.
[32][38]
During winter, the non-breeding season, it
forms larger flocks of as many as 30 birds, and joins flocks with other seed-eating birds, such
as house sparrows and red avadavats.
[38][39]
The Sind sparrow feeds mainly on the seeds of
grasses and other plants such as Polygonum plebeium. It may also forage for insects such as
caterpillars, especially to feed nestlings.
[7]
Flocks forage on flats alongside rivers, flying into
nearby bushes and continuing to forage when disturbed.
[8]



Nesting occurs during a period of several months between April to September, the timing
depending on rainfall, during which two clutches are raised by most pairs. Sind sparrows
build nests in the upper branches of thorny trees or the ends of thin branches hanging over
water.
[20][3][40]
The nest is an untidy dome of grass and other plant matter, such as tamarisk
twigs, roots, and reeds, with a diameter of about 9 to 18 cm (3.5 to 7.1 in). The nest has an
entrance located higher up on the sides, is somewhat flat on top, and is lined with softer plant
material and feathers.
[41]
The birds may sometimes build below the nests of egrets or extend
the nest of a baya weaver or pied myna.
[31][42]
Both the male and female take part in nest
building and incubation.
[8]
Clutches typically contain three to five eggs.
[7]
Scrope Doig
described the eggs as being markedly smallear than the house sparrow's, measuring 0.7 0.5
in (1.3 1.8 cm) and similarly greenish or greyish with highly variable blotches, striations,
and other markings.
[43]

References
1. BirdLife International (2012). "Passer pyrrhonotus". IUCN Red List of Threatened
Species. Version 2012.1. International Union for Conservation of Nature. Archived
from the original on 14 November 2012. Retrieved 5 July 2012.
2. Summers-Smith 1988, pp. 194195
3. Rasmussen & Anderton 2005, p. 575
4. Currie, A. J. (1916). "The Birds of Lahore and the Vicinity". Journal of the Bombay
Natural History Society 24 (3): 561577.
5. Porter, Christensen & Schiermacker-Hansen 1996, p. 410
6. Oates 1890, pp. 238239
7. Summers-Smith 1988, p. 198
8. Ali & Ripley 1999, pp. 7677
9. Currie, A. J. (1909). "The Rufous-backed Sparrow (Passer pyrrhonotus) nesting in
the Punjab". Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 19 (1): 259260.
10. Blyth, E. (1845). "Synopsis of Indian Fringillidae". Journal of the Asiatic Society of
Bengal XIII (156): 944963.
11. Whistler, H. (1925). "A note on the weavers and finches of the Punjab. Part 2".
Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 30 (2): 406417.
12. Dickinson, E. C.; Pittie, A. (21 December 2006). "Systematic notes on Asian birds.
51. Dates of avian names introduced ain early volumes of the Journal of the Asiatic
Society of Bengal". Zoologische Mededelingen (Leiden) 805 (3): 113124.
13. Blanford 1876, p. 255
14. Hume, A. O. (1880). "Notes". Stray Feathers 9 (3): 232234.
15. Hume 1873, p. 209
16. Doig, S. B. (1880). "Birds Nesting on the Eastern Narra. Additions and Alterations.".
Stray Feathers 9 (4): 277282.
17. Hume, A. O. (1881). "Passer pyrrhonotus, Blyth". Stray Feathers 9 (5&6): 442445.
18. James, H. E. M. (1893). "Sind as a Field for the Naturalist". Journal of the Bombay
Natural History Society 8: 322325.
19. Hartert 1903, p. 151
20. Ticehurst 1922, pp. 651653
21. Jobling 2010, p. 237
22. Gill, F.; Donsker, D., eds. (2011). "English Name Updates". IOC World Bird Names
(version 2.10). Archived from the original on 7 November 2011. Retrieved 7
November 2011.
23. Summers-Smith 1992, pp. 3, 6


24. Meise, Wilhelm (1936). "Zur Systematik und Verbreitungsgeschichte der Haus- und
Weidensperlinge, Passer domesticus (aL.) und hispaniolensis (T.)". Journal fr



The Sind sparrow (Passer pyrrhonotus) is a passerine bird of the sparrow family Passeridae,
found around the Indus valley region in South Asia. It is also known as the jungle, Sind
jungle, or rufous-backed sparrow. Very similar to the related house sparrow, it is smaller
and has distinguishing plumage features. As in the house sparrow, the male has brighter
plumage than female and young birds, including black markings and a grey crown.
Distinctively, the male has a chestnut stripe running down its head behind the eye, and the
female has a darker head than other sparrow speciaes do. Its main vocalisations are soft
chirping calls that are extended into longer songs with other sounds interspersed by breeding
males. Historically, this species was thought to be very closely related to the house sparrow,
but its closest evolutionary affinities may lie elsewhere. Discovered around 1840, this species
went undetected for several decades after its discovery.
Within its Indus valley breeding range in Pakistan and western India, the Sind sparrow is
patchily distributed in riverine and wetland habitats with thorny scrub and tall grass. During
the non-breeding season, some birds enter drier habitats as they disperse short distances from
their breeding habitat, or migrate into western Pakistan and the extreme east of Iran. Since
this species is fairly common and expanding its range, it is assessed as least concern on the
IUCN Red List. The Sind sparrow is social within small groups while feeding and breeding,
and during its winter dispersal. It feeds mostly on seeds and less often on insects, foraging
close to the ground. Nests are made in the branches of thorny trees, and are untidy globular
masses constructed from grass or other plant matter and lined with softer material. Both sexes
are involved in building the nest and caring for the young, and usually raise two clutches of
three to five young each breeding season.
Contents
1 Description
2 Taxonomy
3 Distribution and habitat
4 Behaviour
5 References
o 5.1 Works cited
6 External links
Description



Illustration of a pair by John Gerrard Keulemans, 1888
The S Databases, the collection of interconnected files on a server, storing information, may
not deal with the same type of data, i.e. databases may be heterogeneous. As a result, many
kinds of implementation and integration errors may occur in large database systems, which
negatively affect the system's performance, reliability, consistency and security. Thus, it is
important to test in order to obtain a database system which satisfies the ACID properties
(Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability) of a database management system.
[1]

Contents
1 Purposes
2 Types of testings and processes
o 2.1 Black Box Testing in database testing
o 2.2 White Box Testing in database testing
o 2.3 The WHODATE approach for database testing
3 Four stages of database testing
4 Some problems in database testing
5 Basic techniques
6 See also
7 References
8 External link
Purposes
Database testing usually consists of a layered process, including the user interface (UI) layer,
the business layer, the data access layer and the database itself. The UI layer deals with the
interface design of the database,
[citation needed]
while the business layer includes databases
supporting business strategies. The most critical layer is the data access layer, which deals
with databases directly during the communication process. Database testing mainly takes
place at this layer and involves testing strategies such as quality control and quality assurance


of the product databases.
[2]
Testing at these different layers is frequently used to maintain
consistency of database systems, most commonly seen in the following examples:
Data is critical from a business point of view. Companies such as Google or
Symantec, who are associated with data storage, need to have a durable and consistent
database system. If database operations such as insert, delete, and update are
performed without testing the database for consistency first, the company risks a crash
of the entire system.
Some companies have different types of databases, and also different goals and
missions. In order to achieve a level of functionality to meet said goals, they need to
test their database system.
The current approach of testing may not be sufficient in which developers formally
test the databases. However, this approach is not sufficiently effective since database
developers are likely to slow down the testing process due to communication gaps. A
separate database testing team seems advisable.
Database testing mainly deals with finding errors in the databases so as to eliminate
them. This will improve the quality of the database or web-based system.
Database testing should be distinguished from strategies to deal with other problems
such as database crashes, broken insertions, deletions or updates. Here, database
refactoring is an evolutionary technique that may apply.
Types of testings and processes

Black box and white box testing in database test
The figure indicates the areas of testing involved during different database testing methods,
such as black-box testing and white-box testing.
Black Box Testing in database testing
Black box testing involves testing interfaces and the integration of the database, which
includes:
1. Mapping of data (including metadata)
2. Verifying incoming data
3. Verifying outgoing data from query functions
4. Various techniques such as Cause effect graphing technique, equivalence partitioning
and boundary-value analysis.
With the help of these techniques, the functionality of the database can be tested thoroughly.
Pros and Cons of black box testing include: Test case generation in black box testing is fairly
simple. Their generation is completely independent of software development and can be done
in an early stage of development. As a consequence, the programmer has better knowledge of


how to design the database application and uses less time for debugging. Cost for
development of black box test cases is lower than development of white box test cases. The
major drawback of black box testing is that it is unknown how much of the program is being
tested. Also, certain errors cannot be detected.
[3]

White Box Testing in database testing
White box testing mainly deals with the internal structure of the database. The specification
details are hidden from the user.
1. It involves the testing of database triggers and logical views which are going to
support database refactoring.
2. It performs module testing of database functions, triggers, views, SQL queries etc.
3. It validates database tables, data models, database schema etc.
4. It checks rules of Referential integrity.
5. It selects default table values to check on database consistency.
6. The techniques used in white box testing are condition coverage, decision coverage,
statement coverage, cyclomatic complexity.
The main advantage of white box testing in database testing is that coding error are detected,
so internal bugs in the database can be eliminated. The limitation of white box testing is that
SQL statements are not covered.
The WHODATE approach for database testing

WHODATE approach for SQL statement transformation
While generating test cases for database testing, the semantics of SQL statement need to be
reflected in the test cases. For that purpose, a technique called WHite bOx Database
Application TEchnique "(WHODATE)" is used. As shown in the figure, SQL statements are
independently converted into GPL statements, followed by traditional white box testing to
generate test cases which include SQL semantics.
[4]

Four stages of database testing
Set Fixture
Test run
Outcome verification
Tear down
A set fixture describes the initial state of the database before entering the testing. After setting
fixtures, database behavior is tested for defined test cases. Depending on the outcome, test
cases are either modified or kept as is. The "tear down" stage either results in terminating
testing or continuing with other test cases.
[5]



For successful database testing the following workflow executed by each single test is com
ind sparrow is very similar to the house sparrow, and both sexes resemble their counterparts
of that species, but it is slightlay smaller and males and females each have features that
distinguish them as Sind sparrows. The Sind sparrow is 13 cm (5.1 in) long, while the
common South Asian subspecies of the house sparrow, Passer domesticus indicus, is about
15 cm (5.9 in) long. Wingspans range from 6.2 to 7.0 cm (2.4 to 2.8 in), tails from 4.7 to
5.7 cm (1.9 to 2.2 in), and tarsi measure 1.61.9 centimetres (0.630.75 in).
[2]

The breeding male has a short and narrow black bib and a broad chestnut eye stripe that does
not meet the mantle.
[3][4]
The male has a grey crown and nape and a rufous lower back and
rump. The female has a darker and greyer crown and cheek than the female house sparrow
and the shoulder is darker chestnut.
[3]
The female Dead Sea sparrow of the subspecies Passer
moabiticus yattii is also similar to the female Sind sparrow, but has yellow tinges on the
underparts and sometimes on parts of the head.
[5][6]
The bill is black on the breeding male and
pale brown on the non-breeding male and female. With a culmen length of 1.11.3
centimetres (0.430.51 in), the Sind sparrow is slightly smaller-billed than the house
sparrow.
[2][3]

The Sind sparrow's chirping chup call is softer, less strident, and higher pitched than that of
the house sparrow, and is easily distinguished.
[7][8]
The song of breeding males includes
chirrups interspersed with grating t-r-r-rt notes and short warbles or whistles.
[7][8][9]

Taxonomy
The Sind sparrow was first formally described by Edward Blyth, from a specimen collected
by Alexander Burnes at Bahawalpur in around 1840.
[10][11]
Blyth's description was published
in an issue of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal which, although dated 1844, was
published only in 1845.
[12]
It was not recorded until 36 years later, despite the efforts of noted
ornithologists Allan Octavian Hume in Sindh and William Thomas Blanford in eastern
Iran.
[2][13]
This was probably because of its general similarity to the house sparrow,
[2]
though
additionally, Blyth's description of the species incorrectly described its rump feathers as
maroon, and a description by Thomas C. Jerdon contained similar errors.
[14]
Commenting on
his unsuccessful search, Hume wrote that the hundreds of house sparrows he killed in pursuit
of the Sind sparrow "ought to form a heavy load" on Blyth's conscience, and that if the Sind
sparrow existed "it would be only decent for it ... to put on an appearance with as little delay
as possible".
[15]
Hume doubted its distinction, as did other ornithologists.
[14]
The Sind sparrow
was rediscovered by Scrope Berdmore Doig in 1880, in the Eastern Nara district.
[16][17][18]

Ernst Hartert considered it a subspecies of the house sparrow, Passer domesticus
pyrrhonotus, in his Die Vgel der palarktishen Fauna,
[19]
but Doig and Claud Ticehurst both
found that the two species bred in the same areas without interbreeding.
[2][20]

The specific epithet of the Sind sparrow, pyrrhonotus, comes from the Greek purrhos
("flame-coloured"), and -ntos ("-backed").
[21]
E. C. Stuart Baker suggested the English name
rufous-backed sparrow, but as this name might cause confusion with other species, Ticehurst
suggested the name Sind jungle-sparrow, which became the accepted name for the species.
This name refers to Sindh, a province now in Pakistan which makes up a large part of the
Sind sparrow's range, and the jungle habitat of the bird (in the word's original sense of


tangled dry thicket).
[2][20]
This name is shortened to jungle sparrow or Sind sparrow, of which
the first was used in the IOC World Bird List, until Sind sparrow was adopted in 2009.
[22]

The Sind sparrow is a member of the genus Passer, which contains the house sparrow and
around twenty other species.
[23]
In a 1936 review of the house sparrow's relatives, German
ornithologist Wilhelm Meise suggested that the Sind sparrow evolved from an isolated
population of house sparrows, noting that the Indus valley is a centre of small bird types.
[24]

British ornithologist J. Denis Summers-Smith considered the Sind sparrow to be part of the
"Palaearctic black-bibbed sparrow" group including the house sparrow, though not one with a
particularly close relationship with the house sparrow. Summer-Smith suggested that these
species separated 25,000 to 15,000 years ago, during the last glacial period, when sparrows
would have been isolated in ice-free refugia, such as the Indus River Delta, where he thought
the Sind sparrow evolved.
[25][26]
However, studies of mitochondrial DNA indicate an earlier
origin of Passer species, with speciation occurring as early as the late Miocene and early
Pliocene, about 5 million years ago.
[27]
Hume and Ticehurst observed a resemblance, and a
possible relation, between the Sind sparrow and the Dead Sea sparrow of the Middle East and
Balochistan.
[17][20]
William Robert Ogilvie-Grant and Henry Ogg Forbes saw a resemblance
to the Abd al-Kuri sparrow, endemic to the island of Abd al-Kuri, in their 1899 description of
that species,
[28]
noted upon by Guy M. Kirwan in a 2008 study.
[29]