PROVENCE FURZELING. 387 



delivered in a hurried manner, and 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 White-throat, will some- 

 times suspend itself on wing over the furze, singing the whole 

 time, but is more frequently observed on the uppermost spray, 

 in vocal strain for half an hour together. It is rather an early 

 breeder. In 1805, we observed a pair of these birds carrying 

 food in their bills early in the month of May ; from which, 

 and their continual vociferations, there could be no doubt of their 

 having young, and it was also evident the young had quitted 

 their nest and were skulking amongst the thick furze. The 

 artifices these little creatures made to induce us to follow them, 

 in order to entice us from the spot, were highly amusing : 

 their usual cry was changed into a scream of distress ; they 

 would almost suffer the hand to touch them, and then fall 

 from the spray, and tumble along the ground, as if fluttering 

 in their last struggle for existence." 



" Its habits," according to Rusticus of Godalming, who 

 thus describes them in Loudon's Magazine, " are very like 

 those of the little Wren ; and when the leaves are off the trees, 

 and the chill winter winds have driven the summer birds to 

 the olive gardens of Spain, or across the Straits, the Furze 

 Wren, as it is there called, is in the height of its enjoyment. 

 I have seen them by dozens skipping about the furze, lighting 

 for a moment on the very point of the sprigs, and instantly 

 diving out of sight again, singing out their angry impatient 

 ditty, for ever the same. They prefer those places where the 

 furze is very thick, high, and difficult to get in." 



Young. — According to M. Temminck, the young in their 

 second plumage " have a greater number of small streaks on 

 the throat, and the lower parts are interspersed with white 

 feathers." 



