FURZE-WREN 71 



wings, great length of tail, and very dark colour its peculiar song, 

 and excessively lively and restless habits, and the fact that it was 



FIG. 29. - DARTFORD WARBLER. ^ natural size. 



first discovered in this country (1773), where, though so small and 

 delicate a creature, it exists on open, exposed commons throughout 

 the year, have all contributed to make it a fascinating subject to 

 British ornithologists. In England it inhabits Surrey and the 

 counties bordering on the Channel ; but it has also been found in 

 suitable localities in various other parts of the country, and ranges 

 as far north as the borders of Yorkshire. I have sought for it in 

 many places, but found it only in Dorset. Forty or fifty years ago 

 it was most abundant in the southern parts of Surrey ; it was there 

 observed by the late Edward Newman, who gave the following 

 lively and amusing account of its appearance and habits in his 

 ' Letters of Rusticus on the Natural History of Godalming ' (1849) : 

 ' We have a bird common here which, I fancy, is almost unknown 

 in other districts, for I have scarcely ever seen it in collections. . . . 

 I mean the furze- wren, or, as authors are pleased to call it, the 

 Dartford warbler. We hear that the epithet of Dartford is derived 

 from the little Kentish town of that name, and that it was given to 

 the furze-wren because he was first noticed in that neighbourhood. 

 ... If you have ever watched a common wren (a kitty-wren we 

 call her), you must have observed that she cocked her tail bolt up- 



