THE DARTFORD WARBLER 247 



the sight of the small furze-lover can give us. 

 They have never seen it in a state of nature, and 

 probably never will. When I consider aU these 

 British Passeres, which, seen at their best, give 

 most dehght to the aesthetic sense — the jay, the 

 " British Bird of Paradise," as I have ventured to 

 call it, displaying his vari-coloured feathers at a 

 spring-time gathering ; the yeUow-green, long- 

 winged wood wren, most aerial and delicate of 

 the woodland warblers ; the kingfisher, flashing 

 torquoise blue as he speeds by ; the elegant, 

 faAvn-coloured, black-bearded tit, clinging to the 

 grey-green, swaying reeds, and springing from 

 them with a bell-like note ; and the rose-tinted, 

 arrow-shaped bottle-tit as he drifts by overhead 

 in a flock ; the bright, lively goldfinch scattering 

 the silvery thistle-down on the air ; the crossbill, 

 that quaint httle many-coloured parrot of the 

 north, feeding on a pine-cone ; the grey wag- 

 tail exhibiting his graceful motions ; and the 

 golden-crested wren, seen suspended motionless 

 with swiftly vibrating wings above his mate 

 concealed among the clustering leaves, in ap- 

 pearance a great green hawk-moth, his opened 

 and flattened crest a shining, flame-coloured disc 



