RLVEW5 



A History of the Birds of Kent. By Norman F. Ticehurst, 

 M.A., F.R.C.S., F.Z.S., M.B.O.U. lvi. pp. + 568 pp. 

 24 full-page illustrations and two maps. Witherby & Co. 

 21s. net. 



Considering the importance of Kent from an ornithological 

 point of view, it is remarkable that no history of the avifauna 

 of the whole county should have been published until quite 

 recently. In 1907 two books dealing with this subject were 

 reviewed in these pages, but until the appearance of the present 

 volume we were still awaiting a really exhaustive history of 

 the birds of Kent. For the past sixteen years Dr. N. F. 

 Ticehurst has been working at this subject, and the volume 

 which he has just completed cannot fail to take a high place 

 among the published works on the avifauna of the counties 

 of England. 



A county avifauna must necessarily be largely a work of 

 compilation, but the labour of collecting notes, great though 

 it undoubtedly is, cannot be compared with the task of sifting 

 these notes and verifying each individual record. In this 

 Dr. Ticehurst has been particularly successful. Great care 

 has been taken to trace specimens of rare birds as they passed 

 from collection to collection, and as an instance of this we 

 may call attention to the account of the first known British 

 example of the Icterine Warbler. Obtained at Eythorne, 

 near Dover, and recorded by Plomley in 1848, this bird passed 

 from one collection to another, until between the years 1872-74 

 it was partially destroyed by fire, but was carefully treasured 

 for another ten years, after which it unfortunately disappeared 

 (pp. 52, 53). Another of the many interesting results of Dr. 

 Ticehurst's personal attention to local museums is the discovery 

 that Kent produced the earliest known British specimen of 

 the Levantine Shearwater (p. 552). 



Kent will always be associated with three species of birds 

 first made known to science from specimens obtained within 

 its boundaries. These are the Dartford Warbler, Kentish 

 Plover, and Sandwich Tern, and of these three full and most 

 interesting accounts are given in the volume before us. 

 Although the Dartford Warbler has become extinct as a breed- 

 ing bird in the county, the Kentish Plover is holding its own, 

 and not only so, but of late years has steadily increased in 



