192 THE BIRDS OF KENT 



berton Bartlett's notes on the ornithology of Kent, the 

 reader is informed that the Pine-Grosbeak has been 

 ' occasionally killed ' in the county. Mr. Bartlett's in- 

 formant was Dr. F. Plomley, who possibly may have 

 referred to a pair of Pine-Grosbeaks in the late Mr. J. 

 Chaffey's collection of Kentish birds, which were said to 

 have been killed in England, but on whose authority is 

 not known." 



Genus LOXIA, Linnaeus. 



CROSSBILL. 



Loxia curvirostra, Linnaeus. S.N., i., p. 299 

 (1766). 



From the following records there is sufficient evidence 

 that the Crossbill remains in Kent during the summer, 

 and breeds in the county, and the earliest of these par- 

 ticulars appeared in Yarrell's British Birds, who says : 

 " I have been favoured by the Rev. L. B. Larking, of 

 Ryarsh Vicarage, near Maidstone, with a copy of an old 

 MS., which refers to this subject in the following terms : 

 ' That the yeere 1593 was a greate and exceeding yeere of 

 apples ; and there were greate plenty of strange birds, 

 that shewd themselves at the time the apples were full 

 rype, who fedde uppon the kernells onely of those apples, 

 and haveing a bill with one beake wrythinge over the 

 other, which would presently bore a greate hole in the 

 apple, and make way to the kernells ; they were of the 

 bignesse of a Bullfinch, the henne right like the henne of 

 the Bullfinch in colour ; the cocke a very glorious bird, in 

 a manner al redde or yellowe on the brest, backe, and 

 head. The oldest man living never heard or reade of any 



