Following the conquerors came colonists, and in the Saxon districts of England (and Kent is the most Saxon of all) we find the names, not of individual immigrants, but of families or clans. These family settlements are denoted by the termination _ing_, which was the usual Anglo-Saxon patronymic, corresponding to our later “son” in Johnson, etc. So the sons of Charles Brown, who died in Detling, would in earlier days be called the Brownings—as the progeny of a duck are ducklings, and of a goose goslings. It has been held that when the suffix ham or ton is added it denotes a filial colony or offshoot from the original settlement of the clan. There are between two and three thousand places in England which contain the root “ing,” although some (mainly in the north) come from a Norse and substantive “eng” or “ing” which means meadow. Kemble makes 22 original settlements in Kent, and 29 filial offshoots, whereas the western or northern counties have no original, although, between them, 169 filial settlements. If we may thus distinguish two classes of place names which survive in Kent, we have the Bobbings at Bobbing, the Hôcings at Hucking, the Harlings at Harling, the Boerlings at Barling, the Berlings at Birling, the Bollings at Bowling, the Garlings at Garlinge, the Hallings at Halling, the Hircelings at Hecklinge, the Horings at Herringe, the Mollings at Mailing, the Wealings at Welling, the Beltings at Beltring, the Cerrings at Charing, the Petlings at Pedling, the Wickings at Witchling, the Bermarings at Barming. In one case, however, an individual is commemorated in a place-name—Hemmings Bay, near Margate, is the scene of the landing of a Danish chieftain in 1009 A. D. There were many Saxons in Thanet under Roman rule (as interments have shown), but few place names are found there of the patronymic kind, the exceptions being Garlinge, Birchington, Halling Court, Osinghelle, Ellington, and Newington—of which some are doubtful. What about Detling? one of my readers may say. I inclined for some time to the meaning deep meadow (as Deptford is the deep fiord or bay), in allusion to its position between the vast forest above and the extensive marshes below; but Mr. McClure will not hear of “ing” a meadow, in the South of England, and one Oxford Professor of Anglo-Saxon writes me as follows: “The evidence for ing ‘meadow,’ south of Lincolnshire is so scanty or dubious that it would require pretty strong evidence to establish its recurrence in Kent place-names.” In that case one must fall back upon a Saxon ancestor, and lately in Maidstone were found both Major D’Aeth and Mr. De’Ath, whose families would be Deathlings in early Saxon days.