  We report the discovery of seven hitherto unknown L-dwarfs found as a result
of a spectroscopic search for distant AGB stars. Their far-red and
near-infrared colours are very similar to known dwarfs of the same spectral
type. One new object is among the ~30 brightest L-dwarfs, with K_s=12.12, and
is nearby, ~20pc. Using low resolution spectroscopy from the Danish 1.54 m ESO
telescope, spectral types in the range L0.5 - L5 are derived for these seven
L-dwarfs by direct comparison to L-type standards taken from Kirkpatrick et al.
(1999). Distances are determined from existing calibrations, and together with
measured proper motions, yield kinematics for the seven new dwarfs consistent
with that expected for the solar neighbourhood disk population.

Astrophysics