THE ZOOLOGIST 



No. 788.— February, 1907. 



THE BIRDS OF NORTH KENT. 

 By Thomas Hepburn. 



(Plate II.) 



In a previous article on the birds of this district (Zool. 1904, 

 p. 161), I stated that the observations of the field naturalist as 

 regards birds would fall naturally into three categories — either 

 as being connected with the coast-line, or the marsh-levels, or 

 the upland districts. In the article in question I dealt with the 

 birds to be observed along the coast. In the present paper I 

 propose to give the result of observations, extending now for 

 some years, on some of the birds to be seen in the marsh- 

 levels. 



There is a strip of this low-lying, so-called marsh-land, 

 extending right round the whole of the district I then defined, 

 wherever the tidal estuaries of the Thames and Medway are 

 touched by it. The tracts above Gravesend, and between that 

 place and Woolwich, are either of such small size, or so en- 

 croached upon by buildings and factories, as to be of only waning 

 interest to the ornithologist. The same remarks apply, although 

 perhaps in lesser degree, to those portions lying on the Medway 

 close to Rochester. But between Gravesend and the point where 

 the South Eastern and Chatham Railway terminates at Port 

 Victoria, and along the lower reaches of the Medway, there are 

 long stretches of marsh-level, sometimes broadening out to a 

 Zool. 4th ser vol. XI., February, 1907. E 



