2
THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS.
closest attention is the preparation of a second volume of our
"Special Memoirs." Mr. Miller Christy's "Birds of Essex" is
almost complete, and will shortly be in the subscribers' hands.
I will only here say of it that it will fill a very obvious blank that
has already too long existed in the now fairly complete series of
county avifaunas. It was certainly the duty of some one of our
members to see that this gap was stopped, and I think we may
congratulate ourselves that so competent a writer has undertaken the
work. I in no way intend to review Mr. Christy's volume in advance,
but, in seeking a suitable subject on which to address you this
evening, I naturally, perhaps, turned my attention to Birds, and I have
taken three pages of the "Birds of Essex" as my text.
The date of the arrival of twenty-five species of summer migrants
at Epping, as observed by Henry Doubleday for eighteen consecutive
years (1828-1845) are tabulated on pp. 40 and 41, and the dates of
the arrival of thirty-seven species at Wrabness, as observed by the
Rev. Revett Sheppard, from 1818 to 1830, are given on p. 42.
These cannot compare with the Marsham series observed near
Stratton, Norfolk, extending from 1736 to 1810, and again from
1836 to 1874.l Although Mr. Harting delivered a lecture on the
Migration of Birds, to our Club on December 19th, 1885, which I
am sorry I did not hear, and although the arrival and departure of
certain migratory birds is noted with interest by every field naturalist,
it is certainly remarkable that up to the present time our publica-
tions have not contained a single note on the arrival of our migrant
birds.
It has been well said by Le Vaillant, the author of numerous
well-illustrated works on the birds of America, India and Africa,
that "theories are more easy and more brilliant than observations ;
but it is by observation alone that science can be enriched, while a
single fact is frequently sufficient to demolish a system." 2 As I used
a similar expression in my last year's address," I hope this evening
I shall not lay the Club open to the charge that on this subject they
are about to commence with the easy and brilliant theories. I will
say at once that I have none to offer, and in my remarks, if I cannot
lay claim to any great amount of originality, I shall hope to lay before
you some little information that I trust will interest you in the going
and coming of our more familiar birds, and lead some at least to
1 See Trans. Norfolk and Norwich Nat. Soc, ii. 31-45.
2 Quoted in Jesse's "Favourite Haunts and Rural Studies," p. 264.
3 E. N. iii. 100.