442 



the crown ; throat, breast, and flanks rich chestnut-red, the feathers on the throat marked with silvery- 

 grey, centre of the abdomen white; under wing-coverts and under tail-coverts slate-grey; bill blackish, 

 the base of the lower mandible pale yellow ; iris rich orange-yellow, edge of the eyelids bright yellow ; 

 legs reddish brown. Total length about 5 inches, culmen 05, wing 2*1, tail 27, tarsus 075, second 

 quill equal to the seventh, the third equal to the sixth. Tail graduated, the outer feathers being about 

 - 45 inch shorter than the central ones. 



Female (Surrey) . Similar to the male, but the upper parts are browner and duller, and the red on the 

 underparts is much paler and duller. 



Young (Portugal, May) . Upper parts as in the female, but dai'ker ; wings and tail as in the adult, but the 

 edgings to the quills are of a deeper brown ; underparts dull grey, much intermixed or washed with 

 yellowish buff, the breast and abdomen being almost entirely of this latter colour ; eyeUds and legs 

 yellowish; iris pale yellowish brown. 



The range of the Dartford Warbler (or Furze-Wren, as it is also very aptly called) is somewhat 

 peculiar ; for it is met with in Western Europe as far north as our British Isles ; whereas in the 

 remainder of our continent it is only a southern species, not occurring in Germany at all. It is 

 also met with in North Africa, being rare in the eastern part, but more numerous in the west, 

 where it breeds. 



In Great Britain it is a tolerably common species, but inhabits only the southern portions 

 of England, where it is local, and does not occur in either Scotland or Ireland. Except in 

 Middlesex, it does not seem to breed further north than the Thames ; but it is not uncommon on 

 the large heaths and commons in Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, Dorset, Wilts, Devon, and 

 Cornwall. Occasionally also, Professor Newton writes (Yarr. Brit. B. i. p. 399), " it strays 

 further, and is recorded as having been met with in the counties of Oxford, Worcester, 

 Leicester, and Derby — a pair shot, in the winter of 1840, at Melbourne in the county last 

 named, and noticed by Mr. Briggs (Zool. p. 2486), having attained the most northerly limit 

 known for the species in England ; as a straggler, also, it has occurred in Cambridgeshire, 

 Suffolk, and Norfolk." In the last-named county it has, Mr. Stevenson says, only twice been 

 obtained, on both occasions near Yarmouth. 



It does not inhabit Scandinavia, Germany, Holland, or Belgium, but is a resident in France, 

 where, according to Messrs. Degland and Gerbe, it is found in Dauphine, Anjou, Brittany, and 

 especially in Finistere, where it is resident, and in the northern provinces is seen as an occasional 

 straggler. In Provence and the south of France generally it is resident; but, according to 

 Messrs. Jaubert and Barthelemy-Lapommeraye, it breeds only in a narrow belt along the coast 

 from the Pyrenees to the gardens of Nice. It is a resident in Portugal, whence I have specimens 

 collected by Dr. E. Rey, who writes (J. f. O. 1872, p. 148) as follows : — " I only observed one 

 pair in Estremadura ; but in Algarve it was one of the commonest Warblers. I first observed 

 fledged young on the 21st April." In Spain it is, Colonel Irby states, " resident, and not 

 uncommon in all the scrub-covered hills on the coast near Gibraltar, particularly about San 

 Roque, but is most abundant during the breeding-season on the sides of the sierras, nesting in 

 the heather about the 8th of April, on which date Mr. Stark found a nest near Algeciraz with 

 three eggs. There is no doubt they nest at Gibraltar, as they occasionally remain there through 



