VOL. XIV.] KITE, BUZZARD, RAVEN IN KENT. 85 



once evident how exceedingly common the Kite must have 

 been. Prior to this no particular attention seems to have 

 been paid to them, and people appear to have devoted their 

 attention primarily to hedgehogs, foxes, polecats. Crows 

 and Magpies. This effort was kept up for a period of about 

 fourteen years, during the first ten of which no fewer than 

 380 Kites were paid for, one hundred of them alone being 

 killed in the year 1684-5. Ii^ the next two years, although 

 there is no evidence of slackening of the general effort, the 

 number of Kites dropped from thirty-five in 1686-7 to thirteen 

 and two respectively, and thereafter no more than a dozen 

 are included in any one year's accounts. If the same thing 

 was going on to anything like the same extent in other wealden 

 parishes, no large raptorial bird could long withstand the 

 drain on its numbers, and it is easy to understand the above 

 drop, and how the foundation was laid for the final extinction 

 of this bird during the succeeding century. 



With regard to the Raven and Buzzard the above remarks 

 also apply, but to a lesser degree. Both species must have 

 perforce belonged almost entirely to a tree-building race, and 

 the numbers recorded do not suggest that either was any- 

 thing like so common as the Kite. Prior to 1676 only 

 fourteen Ravens and three Buzzards are entered, but during 

 the next fourteen years 198 Ravens and 56 Buzzards were 

 accounted for. 



The easiest method of procuring these birds in quantity 

 would naturally be to take them from the nest when partially 

 feathered, and the constant repetition of entries of them in 

 lots of two, three, and four suggests that the majority of them 

 w-ere thus obtained. Except during the first few years of the 

 accounts, none of these vermin entries is dated, but here 

 and there occur items of payments for other matters that 

 are, and so it is sometimes possible to fix approximate dates 

 for the vermin pa3Tnents. Particularly is this the case for 

 the years 1681-2 and 1682-3 ; here dated items are well 

 distributed throughout the vermin entries, and it is quite 

 evident that the majority of the Kites, Buzzards and Ravens 

 paid for in those years were killed during the nesting-season. 

 From one or two entries in other years that can be approxi- 

 mately dated in the same way, a similar deduction can be 

 drawn. 



There are only two items in the whole book that give direct 

 evidence on this point an-d they are : — 

 1629-30. 

 Itm pd to \Vm. Skilton for the heads of 3 yong 

 Buzzards .. .. .. .. .. .. .. iijd. 



