DARTFORD WARBLER. 129 



" This information redoubled, if possible, my ardour, and I visited 

 a large furze common in my neighbourhood, where I had seen several 

 the preceding autumn ; and upon close search, on the 16th of July, 

 three pairs of old birds were observed, two of which had young evi- 

 dently by their extreme clamour, and by frequently appearing with food 

 in their bills. 



" On the 17th my researches were renewed, and after three hours 

 watching the motions of another pair, I discovered the nest with three 

 young: it was placed among the dead branches of the thickest furze, 

 about two feet from the ground, slightly fastened between the main 

 stems, not in a fork. 



" On the same day, a pair were observed to be busied carrying mate- 

 rials for building : and by concealing myself in the bushes, I soon dis- 

 covered the place of nidification, and upon examination found the nest 

 was just begun. As early as the 19th the nest appeared to be finished, 

 but it possessed only one egg on the 21st, and on the 26th it contained 

 four, when the nest and eggs were secured. 



" The nest is composed of dry vegetable stalks, particularly goose 

 grass, mixed with the tender dead branches of furze, not sufficiently 

 hardened to become prickly; these are put together in a very loose 

 manner, and intermixed very sparingly with wool. In one of the nests 

 was a single partridge's feather. The lining is equally sparing, for it 

 consists only of a few dry stalks of some fine species of carex, without 

 a single leaf of the plant, and only two or three of the panicles. This 

 thin flimsy structure, which the eye pervades in all parts, much re- 

 sembles the nest of the white-throat. The eggs are also somewhat 

 similar to those of the white-throat, (Curruca cinerea,) but rather less, 

 weighing only twenty-two grains ; like the eggs of that species, they pos- 

 sess a slight tinge of green, and are fully speckled all over with oliva- 

 ceous brown and cinereous, on a greenish-white ground ; the markings 

 becoming more dense, and forming a zone at the larger end. 



" The young were considered no small treasure, and were taken as 

 soon as the proper age arrived for rearing them by hand ; which is at 

 the time the tips of the quills and the greater coverts of the wings 

 expose a portion of the fibrous end. 



" By experience, grasshoppers (which at this season of the year are 

 I to be procured in abundance) are found to be an excellent food for all 

 insectivorous birds ; these, therefore, at first, were their constant food, 

 and after five or six days, a mixture of bread and milk, chopped boiled 

 meat, and a little finely powdered hemp and rape seed, made into a thick 

 paste, were sometimes given to wean them from insect food by degrees ; 



K 



