70 THE BIEDS OF SUSSEX 



p. 59, S.S., Mr. Booth writes of the same bird, that it gene- 

 rally feeds its young on the bodies of a large yellow moth, 

 and that in winter, he has several dmes met with it among 

 stunted thorn-bushes and straggling furze, on the beach 

 between Eastbourne and PevSnsey. 



Mr. Harting mentions that he shot a male specimen on 

 Beptou Hill, February 16th, 1863. Mr. Jeffery also ob- 

 served a pair on Heyshot Common, near Midhurst (see 

 'Zoologist' for 1881, p. 49); and Mrs. Merrifield, in her 

 ' Sketch of the Natural History of Brighton/ speaks of the 

 Dartford Warbler as a very scarce bird (pp. 167, 168). 



In a letter from Mr. EUman, dated April 29th, 1852, he 

 informs me that young Dartford Warblers can fly well, and 

 that instead of being a late breeder, it is the earliest he 

 knows of. He says : — " Yesterday I saw thirty or forty 

 full-grown young ones, but with the tail-feathers only an 

 inch in length, and the bill only half grown." He further 

 says that he has found these birds in considerable numbers 

 on parts of the South Downs about Lewes and Seaford. 



I am not aware that it has any provincial name in Sussex, 

 but in Dorsetshire, on the heaths about Bournemouth, it is 

 known by the cowboys by the remarkable title of " The 

 French Blackbird," and indeed it is not inapplicable, for 

 few, if any, birds that are not black, look darker when on 

 the wing. 



WHITETHEOAT. 



Sylvia rufa. 



This species makes its first appearance in April, but it is 

 not till May is pretty well advanced that it arrives in any 

 considerable numbers. It is then in very bright plumage. 



