358 THE BIRDS OF KENT 



when used alone, is applied in common parlance to the 

 Red Grouse {Lagopus scoticus), yet it would appear from 

 Professor Newton's researches that the earliest record of 

 its employment is with reference to the present species." 

 "It first seems to occur {vide 0. Salusbury Brereton, 

 Archceologia , iii., p. 157) as 'grows ' in an ordinance for 

 the regulation of the royal household dated ' apud 

 Eltham, mens. Jan. 22, Hen. VIII.,' i.e., 1531, and, 

 considering the locality, must refer to Black Game." 

 "The increase of population, the enclosure of wastes, 

 and the drainage of boggy lands, have combined to 

 curtail the area over which the Black Grouse formerly 

 roamed in the south of England, and neither Eltham — 

 once a favourite resort of Plantagenet and Tudor 

 sovereigns — nor any other part of Kent can now show 

 any indigenous birds." 



Family RALLID^. 



Genus R ALL US, Linn^us. 



WATEE-KAIL. 



Rallus aquaticus, Linnaeus. S.N., i., p. 262 

 (1766). 



This bird is far from being plentiful in any part of 

 Kent, and it appears from the records to hand that most 

 of the specimens have been obtained in late autumn and 

 winter. 



Boys records it among the Birds of Sandioich, 1792. 

 In the Zoologist, 1844, the Rev. J. Pemberton Bartlett 

 writes : " I observe in the Zoologist for this month 

 {Zoologist, 575) a note by Mr. Hussey on the Water- 



