THE DARTFORD WARBLER S41 



have never seen it (in this country at all events) 

 in a state of nature. In some cases even persons 

 interested in bird life, some of them naturalists 

 too, did not know what was going on in their 

 inimediate neighbourhood until after the bird 

 was gone. I met with a case of the kind, a very 

 strange case indeed, in the summer of 1899, at a 

 place near the south coast where the bird was 

 common after it had been destroyed in Surrey, 

 but does not now exist. In my search for 

 information I paid a visit to the octogenarian 

 vicar of a smaU rustic village. He was a native 

 of the parish, and loved his home above all places, 

 even as White loved Selborne, and had been a 

 clergyman in it for over sixty years ; moreover 

 he was, I was told, a keen naturalist, and though 

 not a collector nor a writer of books, he knew 

 every plant and every wild animal to be found in 

 the parish. He better than another, I imagined, 

 would be able to give me some authentic local 

 information. 



I found him in his study — a tall, handsome, 

 white-haired old man, very feeble ; he rose, and 

 supporting his steps with a long staff, led me 

 out into the grounds and talked about nature. 



R 



