234 BIRDS AND MAN 



depriving us and our posterity of the delight the sight 

 of them affords. 



Of many curious experiences I have met in my 

 quest of the rare Httle bird, or of information con- 

 cerning it, I have related two or three : I have one 

 more to give — assuredly the strangest of all. I was out 

 for a day's ramble with the members of a Natural 

 History Society, at a place the name of which must 

 not be told, and was walking in advance of the 

 others with a Mr A., the leading ornithologist of the 

 county, one whose name is honourably known to all 

 naturalists in the kingdom. The Dartford warbler, 

 he said in the course of conversation, had unhappily 

 long been extinct in the county. Now it happened 

 that among those just behind us there was another 

 local naturalist, also well known outside his own 

 county — Mr B., let us call him. When I separated 

 from my companion this gentleman came to my side, 

 and said that he had overheard some of our talk, and 

 he wished me to know that Mr A. was in error in 

 saying that the Dartford warbler was extinct in the 

 county. There was one small colony of three or 

 four pairs to be found at a spot ten to eleven miles 

 from where we then were ; and he would be glad 

 to take me to the place and show me the birds. The 

 existence of this small remnant had been known for 



