2 FIELD-STUDIES OF RARER BIRDS 



The present head-quarters of the Dartford 

 .Warbler are undoubtedly parts of Surrey and 

 Hampshire (in one resort I know I have seen 

 twenty-five pairs in two days), but it also breeds 

 in Cornwall, Dorset, and possibly Devon. In 

 Kent, however, it has apparently ceased to nest, 

 while it is very rare indeed in Sussex. There are 

 a few favoured localities in the Midlands, even in 

 the Western Midlands the species has bred even 

 as far north as Yorkshire and the bird is a regular 

 habitue of Suffolk, and perhaps of Norfolk as well. 

 Elsewhere in Britain it is virtually unknown ; and 

 certainly as a breeding species. 



Three possible causes though all three are 

 rather unsatisfactory have been mooted for the 

 diminution of the " Dartford 's " forces. Certainly 

 the bird has decreased in some, and vanished from 

 many, former strongholds : Sussex alone provides 

 plenty of such sorry instances. It has been said 

 and perhaps with some vestige of truth that 

 inordinately severe winter weather has thinned its 

 ranks. Mr. W. Swaysland, for instance, who was 

 great on Sussex " Dartfords," considers that the 

 very heavy snow in the 'seventies of the last 

 century finally exterminated the species round 

 Brighton, where, previous to that, it was quite 



common.* 



If this ' weather-cause ' be correct, then 

 surely Nature has played her part poorly in 



*I know one ancient haunt, however, to which it has returned. 



