196 Mr, Montagu's Remarks on Falco cyaneus, 



wards, and not unusually turn over backwards on the perch. 

 The males, of which there were three out of the four, began to 

 sing with the appearance of their first mature feathers, and con- 

 tinued in song all the month of October, frequently with scarce 

 any intermission for several hours together : the notes are entirely 

 native, consisting of considerable variety, delivered in a hurried 

 manner, but in a much lower tone than I have heard the old 

 birds in their natural haunts. This song is different from any 

 thing of the kind I ever heard, but in part resembles most that 

 of the stone-chat. 



The Dartford Warbler, like the Whitethroat, will sometimes 

 suspend itself on wing over the furze, singing the whole time; 

 but is more frequently observed on an uppermost spray, in vocal 

 strain for half an hour together. * 



Buffon, who appears to have been the first and perhaps the 

 only person on the continent who knew any thing of the Dart- 

 ford Warbler as a naturalist, seems to have known very little 

 more than the bird itself, and that it had been found in Pro- 

 vence, (as his name evinces,) but nothing of its habits. If he 

 had not figured it in PL enl. 655. f. 1, it would scarcely be con- 

 ceived that the history given by that author could be intended far 

 this species. We must therefore conclude that he, like other treat 

 men, was deceived in that part of its natural history related by 

 M. Guys of Marseilles, from whom he seems to have collected 

 that this bird not only feeds amongst cabbages on the smaller 

 lepidopterous insects, but that it roosts amongst their leaves, to 

 secure itself against the Bat, its enemy. 



To this curious account, implicit faith cannot be given ; for 

 as on the continent furze is by no means uncommon, except in 

 the more northern part, there can be no reason to believe the 

 nature of this little creature to be so different in Provence from 

 what it is in England, where it is only found to inhabit the more 



extended 



