CHAPTER I. 



DARTFORD WARBLERS. 



AT the present day the Dartford .Warbler* is 

 generally accounted as one of our rarest British 

 breeding birds. In reality, however, this rather 

 inaccurate impression has gained ground largely 

 from the fact that many of its best-known haunts, 

 formerly familiar to a few fortunates, have lost its 

 presence perhaps for ever as well as to the 

 certainty that even a skilled ornithologist a being 

 sadly in the minority may wander through its 

 lines on an unsuitable day, or, in other words, on 

 a very wet or windy, sunless day, without seeing or 

 hearing a single specimen, whereas the whole time 

 it may be comparatively abundant there. The 

 Dartford Warbler has, of course, always been 

 capriciously local in its choice of a haunt. For 

 instance, you get two furze-clad commons or down- 

 brakes, or two wastes of heath dotted with self- 

 sown conifers, situate within a mile or less of one 

 another, and to the human perception equally 

 suitable and identical in every detail. One 

 harbours Dartford Warblers, the other does not ; 

 and nothing will well explain the situation. 



* Sylvia dartforiiensis Lath. 



B 



