Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/697

 DARTFORD DARTMOOR 693 fishes, crawfish, shrimps, young reptiles, aqua- tic insects, eggs of frogs, young leeches, &c., and in confinement even boiled maize. The quantity of fish they will consume is enormous ; but like other flesh and fish-eating birds, they can remain several days without food. The flesh is tough, oily, and unfit for food, except the small pectorals of the female. They are gre- garious in winter, fishing entirely by day, and fond of returning nightly to the same roosting places, which are always over water ; they are not very shy in their favorite haunts, where they 'are seldom molested. Their flight is swift, well sustained, and often at an immense height, where they sail about in graceful curves, especially in the love season ; on land they walk and run well, much better than the cormorant, holding the tail up, and darting the head about continually, distending the pouch, and uttering rough guttural sounds. As divers they are unsurpassed by fresh-water birds, dis- appearing with the utmost quickness, and swim- ming beneath the surface for a long distance by means of the feet, the wings partially spread -and the tail expanded. Asleep, they stand with the body nearly erect, the head under the scapulars. In East Florida they breed toward the end of February, in Louisiana in April or May, and in South Carolina in June; Audu- bon supposes the same birds may breed twice a year in widely separated localities. The nest, made of sticks, is flattened, and is gen- erally in tall water-surrounded cypresses ; the eggs are three or four, 2 in. long, of a light blue color, covered with a whitish chalky sub- stance. The birds attain their full plumage during the first year, and retain it through life. When wounded, the sharp bill proves a formidable weapon of defence. According to Audubon, the quills and tail feathers, as in the cormorant, have the shaft hollow, even to the tip, with transparent walls of the same na- ture as the barrel, which last is the same as in other birds. DARTFORD, a market town of Kent, Eng- land, on the Darent, 17 m. by the North Kent railway S. E. of London ; pop. in 1871, 5,314. It is in a valley at a ford in the river, from which it takes its name, and consists chiefly of one wide street on the Dover road. It has a large ancient church, the ruins of a nunnery founded in 1371, a large iron foundery and ma- chine shop, grain, oil, powder, paper, and cot- ton mills, calico and silk printing works, and gas works. The first mill in England for roll- ing and slitting iron was near this town. The river is navigable from this point to its junc- tion with the Thames. Dartford is noted in history as the place where the insurrection under Wat Tyler broke out in 1381. DARTMOOR, a desolate tract of land in Devon- shire, England, extending from N. to S. about 22 m., and from E. to W. 14 m., at an eleva- tion of 1,700 ft. above the sea; area estimated at about 150,000 acres. The surface is alter- nately swamp and barrens, producing a coarse grass on which cattle and sheep subsist during the summer months. Numerous hills of gran- ite, called tors, break the surface, and rise to a considerable elevation, Yes tor being 2,050 ft., and Oawsand Beacon hill 1,792 ft. above the sea level. Of these tors, 150 are enumerated in Oarrington's poem on Dartmoor. In the centre of the moor is an extensive swamp, in which the rivers Dart, Teign, Taw, Erme, Yealin, and 50 smaller streams take their rise. The climate is at all times cold and moist. Storms from the Atlantic sweep over the moor, arid it is difficult to imagine a more desolate spot during winter. A few scattered hamlets, occupied by quarry men, contain the only popu- lation. There are productive tin mines at Wheal, Duchy, and Birch tor, and copper and manga- nese are found. Druidical remains may be traced in many places, especially below Sittaford tor, at Grimspound, and at Drewsteignton. The greater part of the tract was afforested under Dartmoor Prison. the name of Dartmoor forest by King John. Under Edward III. it was united to the duchy of Cornwall. Dartmoor is chiefly noted as the site of a prison built in 1809, at a cost of 127,000, for the custody of French prisoners of war. At one time it contained 10,000 in- mates. On the breaking out of hostilities with the United States in 1812, 2,500 impressed sailors, claiming to be American citizens, and refusing to serve in the British navy against their country, were imprisoned in Dartmoor, where most of them were kept till the end of the war. Accounts of the harshness of their treatment reached the United States, and crea- ted much feeling. This was especially the case on an occasion when the guard fired upon the prisoners. Explanations, however, have shown that the occurrence was the result of a mis- take. The Dartmoor prison enclosures occupy an area of 30 acres, encircled by a double line of lofty walls. In 1850 the prison was fitted for the reception of convicts. About one half the annual expense of maintaining the institu- tion is repaid by the industrial employments of the inmates.