WOODCHAT 135 



noted in Mr. G. E. Gray's Catalogue of British Birds 

 in the British Museum (p. 83, 1863) " a, Kent ; male." 



Professor Newton, in Yarrell's British Birds (vol. i., 

 p. 216), says : " In the British Museum there is a speci- 

 men of the Woodchat, a young male, which formerly 

 belonged to Leach's collection, and is labelled as having 

 been killed in Kent " ; and Mr. 0. V. Aplin, in his Status 

 of the Woodchat {Zoologist, 1892, p. 349), adds: "It is 

 probably the bird which was killed in the neighbourhood 

 of Canterbury, and that it is not enumerated, however, 

 among the specimens now in the Museum in vol. viii. of 

 the Catalogue of Birds." No doubt the above is the 

 same specimen mentioned by Morris, from near Canter- 

 bury. There is also a male labelled Kent in the Exeter 

 Museum, the bequest of the Eev. Bower-Scott. 



In 1857 Captain H. W. Hadfield published in the 

 Zoologist an account of his finding a AVoodchat near 

 Tonbridge, which is here subjoined : — 



" May 14, 1857 : Went out in quest of birds, and had 

 not proceeded above a quarter of a mile from the town 

 when I observed a strange one fly across the road ; there 

 was a pecularity in its appearance, as well as flight, 

 which attracted my attention, and I felt sure it was a 

 species I had never before seen ; consequently hastened 

 to load my gun, and while doing so it passed so close 

 that I could not only distinguish the reddish-brown 

 patch on the head and neck, but a fly that it had cap- 

 tured and still held between its beak. Having seen it 

 alight on an oak tree some fifty yards off, I followed it 

 up and shot at it, when it fell among some nettles, but 

 being merely winged it crept into a hedge, where it was 

 subsequently seen by some boys who had joined me in 

 the search, which was continued for an hour or two. 



