THE DARTFORD WARBLER 239 



Hampshire." It did not long continue " very 

 abundant." Gould was shown the bird, and 

 supplied with specimens, by a man named 

 Smithers, a bird-stufFer of Churt, who was at 

 that time collecting Dartford warblers and their 

 eggs for the trade and many private persons, on 

 the open heath and gorse-grown country that 

 lies between Farnham and Haslemere. Gould, 

 in the work quoted, adds : " As most British 

 collectors must now be supplied with the eggs of 

 the furze wren, I trust Mr. Smithers wiU be more 

 sparing in the future." So little sparing was he, 

 that when he died, but few birds were left for 

 others of his detestable trade who came after 

 him. 



Three or four years ago I got in conversation 

 with a heath-cutter on Milford Common, a 

 singular and brutal -looking feUow, of the half- 

 Gypsy Devil's Punch-Bowl type, described so 

 ably by Baring-Gould in his Broom Squire. He 

 told me that when he was a boy, about thirty-five 

 years ago, the furze wren was common in aU that 

 part of the country, until Smithers' offer of a 

 shilling for every clutch of eggs, had set the boys 

 from all the villages in the district hunting for 



