42 BRITISH BIRDS’ EGGS. 
DARTFORD WARBLER. 
MELIZOPHILUS UNDULATUS, Bodd. 
Pl. X., fig. 4. 
Geogr. distr.— Western Europe as far to the northward as Great 
Britain ; otherwise confined to the south; N. Africa, especially the 
western portion. In Great Britain it is tolerably common, though 
local, in the southern counties; excepting in Middlesex, it does not 
breed further north than the Thames; not known in Scotland or 
Ireland; it is not rare in heathy parts of Kent, Surrey, Sussex, 
Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall. 
Food.—Small insects in all stages. 
Nest.—Loosely constructed of stems of goose-grass and other 
vegetable stalks and young dry furze mixed with wool and lined 
with a few dry stalks of Carex; altogether not unlike the nest of the 
Greater Whitethroat. 
Position of nest.—In dry furze bushes. 
Number of eggs.—4-5. 
Time of nidification.—V1-VII. 
T have not hitherto had the pleasure of discovering the 
nest of this species, and the egg which I have figured is 
from Mr. Seebohm’s collection; as will be seen, it is 
decidedly darker than that of the Whitethroat, and quite 
unlike the egg figured by Hewitson, which would do equally 
well for that species. The nest appears chiefly to differ in 
having furze mixed with the grass-stalks which compose 
its walls, a combination which I have never found in the 
nest of Sylvia rufa. According to Newton (Yarrell’s Brit. 
Birds) nests built early in the season are more compact, 
and rather resemble those of the Sedge Warbler, and such 
certainly is the impression conveyed by’ the admirable 
representation of the nest at the end of his article. 
