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 19tli 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 
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 
