DARTFORD-WARBLER 47 



Dr. Salter put up young birds just able to fly on April 27th near 

 Le Ponge ; but he considered the usual date for eggs to be about the 

 last week in April, and that this single early nest was abnormal. Mr. 

 Jourdain has also seen young birds on the wing in Spain as early as 

 April 7th, but in England they do not seem to be fledged before the 

 first week in May. 



The food of the young consists chiefly of insects and their larvEe, 

 including moths, which both birds bring, though the male appears to 

 be the bolder of the two. While, however, he flies to the top of a bush, 

 protesting loudly with crest erect and angry jerking tail, the female 

 will slip quietly through the undergrowth and administer food 

 surreptitiously, but she is often not a whit behindhand, giving vent 

 to her emotion in language that is no more choice than that of her 

 mate : and when the young are fledged, both parents seek to lure 

 away the intruder from the skulking brood by a variety of pretences, 

 tumbling over, or fluttering along the ground, uttering a harsh " tac, 

 tac, tu, te," which is louder in the male than in the female. 



During autumn and winter the behaviour of these birds seems 

 to depend largely on circumstances. Some pairs keep near the 

 vicinity of their breeding-place all the year, others leave the high 

 grounds for sheltered valleys ; sometimes the necessity of procuring 

 food forces them to the seashore, and during a long spell of cold 

 they will even resort to cottage gardens and hunt among bushes 

 and fallen leaves for insect food. In the autumn they feed upon soft 

 fruits, as do the Sylviinae in general. Where an isolated couple keep 

 to one given spot all the year round, as was the case with a pair 

 watched by Messrs. C. J. and H. S. Alexander in Ashdown Forest, 

 the natural inference is that they pair for life, and that the young 

 are driven away to pastures new. 



