DARTFORD WARBLER. 341 
Tue Darrrorpv Warsier 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 Melizophilus 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; but 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, ‘‘ 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 1830; whence we concluded that, notwithstand- 
ing the severity of the frost, it had wintered here, as it is 
