140
AN ESSEX CURLEW SANDPIPER.
northern banks of the Camp are mixed up with the houses and
gardens of the village.
The inner or eastern enclosure has a ditch traceable round it by
the east, south, and west, taking that at D to be the original one.
On the north the steepness of the fall confuses this. The other
widenings of the Camp are very difficult to trace, except when the
grass is low ; and perhaps they are the remains, not so much of the
original Camp as of pens or protections for cattle : they lie away from
Maldon. Were it not that these slight walls are not hedgerows, and
that they are, so to speak, loops or additions joining at each end to
the main work, I should not have included them; but in planning
the works they could not be omitted, as some connection was obvious.
There is, too, a likeness in their disposition to those around the
Witham Camp (although they are not placed so symmetrically) and
these plans compared together help us to comprehend them better.
As a whole, the works are difficult to understand. But I have
worked over them repeatedly in the endeavour to get a general out-
line. Winter and spring are the periods when they should be visited
with a good prospect of seeing them to advantage. I offer the
plan as a very carefully considered outline of Danbury Camp. The
Camp is not mentioned in any early work, and its history is
unknown ; but its general likeness to Witham and other places of a
similar date is clear.
AN ESSEX CURLEW SANDPIPER.
(Tringa subarquata).
By REV. H. A. MACPHERSON, M.A.
MR. CHRISTY tells us ("Birds of Essex," p. 247), that this
pretty little wader is not very uncommon on the Essex coast
"as a spring and autumn migrant." I confess that, as regards the
former season, I should have thought the Curlew Sandpiper very
uncommon indeed on any part of our coast. There are strong
reasons for supposing that this Sandpiper returns to its breeding
grounds in spring by some route lying to the east of the British Isles,
and that only a very few stragglers occur in early summer on our