360 THE BIRDS OF KENT 



Genus PORZANA, Vieillot. 



SPOTTED CRAKE. 



Porzana porzana (Linnseus). >S'.A^., i., p. 262 

 (1766). 



Morris, in his History of British Birds, states that 

 " Mr. E. Blyth saw one in the London roarket in 

 January, 1834, which was said to have come from Kent." 

 The Eev. J. Pemberton Bartlett, writing in 1844, says 

 the Spotted Crake is "common in autumn in Eomney 

 Marsh." 



There is a specimen in the Maidstone Museum, obtained 

 at Hythe, in Kent, by Mr. J. R. Price. 



In the Zoologist, 1891, Mr. 0. V. Aplin contributed 

 an article on The Distribution in the British Islands of 

 the Spotted CraJce, from which is subjoined a note under 

 Kent: "In reply to my request for information (Zoologist, 

 1870, p. 457), Mr. W. Oxenden Hammond, of St. Alban's 

 Court, near Wingham, has been good enough to send 

 me the following note : ' I can give none with reference 

 to its breeding in this neighbourhood, although in the wet 

 summer of 1880 (I think that was the year), I remember 

 killing one in the flooded marshes at Stodmarsh, near 

 Canterbury, in July, the marshes being full of Snipe. 

 From the season, this bird had probably bred. I have 

 killed several, at different times, in the marshes at 

 Wingham. It is rather a curious coincidence that, having 

 read your article on this bird in the Zoologist in the 

 evening, I went to shoot Snipe the next morning 

 (November 1), and in the course of the day killed a 

 Spotted Crake.' " The specimen now in the Canterbury 

 Museum, labelled Wingham, no doubt is the bird men- 

 tioned above. Mr. W. Prentis states that " our Eainham 



