DARTFORD WARBLER. ,341 



THE DARTFORD WARBLER appears to have been first 

 made known as a bird inhabiting this country by Dr. La- 

 tham, from specimens obtained at Bexley Heath, near 

 Dartford, in April 1773; the occurrence of this novelty 

 was soon after communicated to Pennant, who inserted this 

 species in the edition of his British Zoology, published in 

 1776. 



The generic term Melizopliilus was applied to this bird 

 by the late Dr. Leach, and first appeared in print in 

 1816 in a small, thin quarto volume, entitled "A Syste- 

 matic Catalogue of the Specimens of the Indigenous Mam- 

 malia and Birds then preserved in the British Museum," 

 and this generic distinction of the Dartford Warbler has 

 been admitted to some extent in the works of other Na- 

 turalists. Since this bird was discovered on Bexley Heath 

 in Kent, it has been found on most of the commons in 

 Kent, Surrey, or Middlesex, which bear old and thick 

 furze. Colonel Montagu found it both in Cornwall and 

 Devonshire, and has detailed at length, both in the Linnean 

 Transactions and in the Supplement to his Ornithological 

 Dictionary, the habits of this bird, more particularly during 

 the spring and summer, which will be hereafter referred 

 to ; bui so many examples have occurred during winter, 

 that there is no doubt this little hardy warbler remains in 

 this country the whole year. Montagu shot one from 

 the upper branch of a furze bush at a time when the furze 

 was covered with snow ; and he saw other specimens on 

 the same occasion. Mr. Rennie, in his Architecture of 

 Birds, page 233, says, a We observed this bird on Black- 

 heath, suspended over the furze, and singing on the wing 

 like a Whitethroat or a Titlark, as early as the end of 

 February 1 830 ; whence we concluded that, notwithstand- 

 ing the severity of the frost, it had wintered here, as it is 



