312 SYLVIA.D.E. 



The Dartford Warbler appears to have been first 

 made known as a bird inhabiting this country by Dr. La- 

 tham, from specimens obtained at Bexley Heath, near Dart- 

 ford, in April 1773 ; the occurrence of this novelty was soon 

 after communicated to Pennant, who inserted this species 

 in the edition of his British Zoology, published in 1776. 



The generic term Melizophihis was applied to this bird by 

 the late Dr. Leach, and first appeared in print in 1816 in a 

 small, thin quarto volume, entitled " A Systematic Cata- 

 logue of the Specimens of the Lidigenous Mammalia and 

 Birds then preserved in the British Museum," and this gene- 

 ric distinction of the Dartford Warbler has been admitted 

 to some extent in the works of other Naturalists. Since this 

 bird was discovered on Bexley Heath in Kent, it has been 

 found on most of the commons in Kent, Surrey, or Mid- 

 dlesex, which bear old and thick furze. Colonel Montagu 

 found it both in Cornwall and Devonshire, and has detailed 

 at length, both in the Linnean Transactions and in the Sup- 

 plement to his Ornithological Dictionary, the habits of this 

 bird, more particularly during the spring and summer, which 

 will be hereafter referred to ; but so many examples have 

 occurred during winter, that there is no doubt this little 

 hardy bird remains in this country the whole year. Montagu 

 shot one from the upper branch of a furze bush at a time 

 when the furze Avas covered with snow ; and he saw other 

 specimens on the same occasion. Mr. Rennie, in his Ar- 

 chitecture of Birds, page 233, says, " We observed this bird 

 on Blackheath, suspended over the furze, and singing on the 

 wing like a Wliitethroat or a Titlark, as early as the end of 

 February 1830 ; whence we concluded that, notwithstanding 

 the severity of the frost, it had wintered here, as it is known 

 to do in Devonshire." In a paper in the JNIagazine of Natu- 

 ral History, by Rusticus of Godalming, near which place this 

 bird appears to be plentiful, it is stated, that " its habits are 



