24 THE BIRDS OF KENT 



through a performance of rolhng over, spreading its wings 

 and tail, turning somersaults, lying down, shammmg 

 death, itc. A pair bred in a mound of ant-hill turf at 

 Orlestone in 1904-5. It is occasionally seen, according to 

 Mr. E. T. Filmer, in the Orlestone district, but is not 

 so common as at liye. It is included in Boys' Birds 

 of Saiidivich, 1792. Mr. J. Pemberton Bartlett states 

 (1844) that it was " common in Romney Marsh." Among 

 the arrivals of summer birds at Shooter's Hill in 1846, 

 Mr. M. Hutchinson " met a stray Wheatear on Wool- 

 wich Common on April 30, and on April 17, 1866, he 

 saw two Wheatears on Blackheath — one among the furze 

 at the north-east corner of the heath ; and the other, 

 a fine male in splendid plumage, to the south-west of the 

 Tumulus." Mr. W. H. Power, in his Birds Observed 

 at Raiiiham, 1865, says : " They appeared as usual in 

 the spring and autumn, on migration. From its dis- 

 appearance during the summer months, I fancy it seldom 

 breeds in the locality." 



In the Maidstone Museum there are four eggs, taken 

 at Boxley in Kent, by Mr. A. Harris, in 1878, but Mr. H. 

 Elgar says they " no longer breed in this locality." It 

 used to " breed in the railway cutting, near Allington, 

 some years ago, according to Mr. H. Lamb, and it was 

 not uncommon in 1876 on the Boxley range, and bred in 

 the rabbit-burrows on the chalk hills and other places, 

 and he saw it in early spring on the large fields above the 

 Maidstone Cemetery, at Allington and at Barnnng, but 

 only when migrating." In 1882 the Eev. C. H. Fielding 

 adds it to the list of " birds found at Higham." In Mr. 

 A. G. Butler's British Birds' Eggs, 1886, he says : "I have 

 hitherto only met with the nest once in Kent ; it was 

 placed in a hole in the side of a bank enclosing a water- 



