THE BIRDS OF THE BLACKWATER VALLEY.
259
I have an idea that we are not quite so wise as our ancestors
in a knowledge of this peculiarity of the Redwing. There are
still in daily use, or to be found in old books, a great number of
names for the Redwing. And all of them seem to be connected
with the "seep" note :—"Swinepipe" is perhaps the com-
monest ; other variants are "Winepipe," "Windpipe," "Wing-
pipe," "Winnard," "Windle," "Wind Thrush," "Wingthrush,"
and "Wheenerd" ; the Germans call the bird "Weindrossel."
We to-day call it Redwing. Many a naturalist cannot tell a
Redwing from a Songthrush, so similar are they except to the
student of birds—yet so inscrutably dissimilar when we begin
to look below the concealing mask of plumage. As with so many
other birds, we should understand the Redwing much better if we
ignored its feathers entirely. The skin is the binding : the living
bird is the real book, its pages printed in uncouth characters in a
strange tongue, hard to read, difficult to comprehend. After
quite thirty years' close study I have yet to learn the real meaning
of one simple monosyllable from this ordinary bird—and there
are so many other comely volumes waiting to be read !
THE BIRDS OF THE BLACKWATER VALLEY
IN 1922 and 1923.
By WILLIAM E. GLEGG, F.Z.S.
THIS note, the second on the birds of the Essex rivers, is
prepared with the object of showing what species may
be observed to-day in these localities.
The late Mr. E. A. Fitch, in his guide to "Maldon and the
River Blackwater," tells of the amazing wealth of bird-life at
one time, apparently within the last fifty years, to be found in
this part of the extensive Essex marshes. Some of his accounts
are so remarkable that they may be repeated justifiably. "I
have seen the sky darkened with wild geese covering a space of
half-a-mile by a quarter-of-a-mile, as thick as manure spread
upon the ground, and making a noise which I could only compare
with fifty packs of hounds in full cry. I have also seen seven
acres at low water covered with Widgeon, Curlew and Ducks,
making such a noise that I could not hear my brother talking
io me a few yards off. Colonel Russell was off the coast in his