128 
DARTFORD WARBLER. 
are of a dusky-brown ; clieeks dark cinereous ; throat, neck, and breast 
fine deep ferrug-inous ; sides the same, but not so bright ; middle of the 
belly white ; quills dusky, slightly edged with dark cinereous on the 
outer webs, those next the body and coverts with dark ferruginous 
])rown ; at the bend of the wing, under the alula spurice^ is a spot 
of white ; the tail is considerably cuneiform, the outer feather is tipped 
with white, and edged with the same on the exterior web ; the next 
slightly tipped with white ; the remainder of these, and all the others, 
dusky ; the middle ones edged with cinereous : legs yellowish. In some 
the throat is speckled with white. 
The female and young birds are of a lighter colour, and more rufous. 
It is called the Dartford Warbler, from having been first discovered in 
England near that place ; it is, however, a scarce species, rarely noticed 
in this country. Dr. Latham seems to have been the first discoverer 
of this bird in England, and communicated it to Mr. Pennant, who first 
published it in his Byutish Zoology^ a pair having been killed on Bex- 
ley Heath, near Dartford, on the 10th of April, 1773. Since that time. 
Dr. Latham informs us, several were shot in the winter of 1783, on a 
common, near Wandsworth, in Surrey, now in the Leverean Museum; 
from which circumstance that author very justly observes, that if it is 
found here only as a winter migrant, he cannot reconcile the circum- 
stance of its breeding in France, (which has been said to be the case,) 
as all migratory birds go northward to breed, not to a warmer climate. 
In the month of September, 1796, we observed many of these birds 
about Falmouth, in Cornwall, frequenting the furzy hills, and killed 
several from that time to the 24th of December, when a sudden fall of 
snow, that covered the ground for some time, drove them from that 
part. Many of these birds, on their first appearance, were in their 
nestling feathers, from which some hopes were entertained of their 
breeding in those parts ; but with the most diligent search, not one was 
to be found the following summer ; nor indeed did they ever return 
after the snow had driven them away. 
My opinion,” says Montagu, in the Linnsean Transactions, that 
this species of warbler bred with us, was greatly strengthened, by 
a letter which I received from a scientific friend in Cornwall, well 
known in the literary world, Mr. Stackhouse, of Pendarvis, who as- 
sured me that his brother had observed these birds for several years to 
inhabit furze, near Truro ; that last year, as well as the present, they 
were plentiful during the summer season ; and that he had not only 
seen them every month in the year, but had observed young ones soon 
after they had left the nest, though his search for the nest and eggs had 
been in vain. 
