Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus./N.Z.) a sparrow.

c.1920s, 1935		personal communications in DNZE (1998).
1964		J.A. Lee Shiner Slattery 49: I’ll have you know it’s a sparrow, a common spug.
1977		M.H. Holcroft Line of the Road 111: It may be assumed also that boys hunted the dread sparrows and may have called them ‘spugs’ – as boys did elsewhere in the country [DNZE].
1984		Sydney Morn. Herald 6 Jan. 1/8: When I was a boy in Newcastle, kids called sparrows spugs or spuggies.
2008		Birding-Aus. 21 Nov. 🌐 My wife, Shirley (growing up in Hobart) is adamant they are ‘Spuggies’. I, however, who grew up in NSW, just know them as pests!