184 THE BIRDS OF (KENT 



sometimes given in the song, but only at one particular 

 part. It then takes the place of the hard penultimate 

 note, wheat, and whenever given it ends the strain. It 

 seems to me to be a survival from an earlier period. The 

 Chaffinch seems to be losing all trace of this danger-cry, 

 and to be developing instead the full love-rattle. The 

 chirri and the " love-rattle," and the Jcce, uttered in 

 succession, would constitute an excellent '' skeleton " of 

 the Chaffinch's song, and especially so if the first two 

 cries were each repeated a few times " (Zoologist, 1898, 

 pp. 195-197). 



BEAMBLING. 



Fringilla mont if ring ilia, Linnaeus. S.'N., i., p. 318 



(1766). 



Brambling, Boys, 1792; Kate (Kent). 



The Brambling is only a winter visitant to the county 

 of Kent, and during severe weather associates in large 

 or small numbers with the Sparrows, Greenfinches and 

 Chaffinches visiting the stubble fields and stockyards for 

 food. 



Pennant, in the British Zoology, 1812, states : " I once 

 had eighteen Bramblings brought to me in Kent which 

 were killed with one discharge of the fowling-piece." 



The Eev. J. Pemberton Bartlett, in his Ornithology of 

 Keiit, 184:4:, says the Brambhng is "common in winter. 

 I never knew them to breed in Kent, but suspect they 

 occasionally do, as I have seen the old and young birds 

 together in September." 



The first observed by Mr. F. D. Power at Kainham 

 was on October 2, 1868 : " These passed over much in the 



