302
THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
the application varying locally. This strict meaning is still
preserved in the name of Debden Slade, in Epping Forest ; but,
at Saffron Walden, the name has got transferred somehow
from the valley or the woodland-glade to the streamlet running
down its middle.
Summing up the foregoing, one finds that, as stated
already, a very large number of our twenty-two Essex
river-names—more than half, in fact—are mere back-form-
ations : not genuine names. At least seven (namely, Stort,
Ching, Mardyke, Roch, Can, Wid, and Brain) are absurdly-
ill-conceived popular inventions of fairly-recent date. At
least seven more (namely, Roding, Bourne (or Beam), Chelmer,
Ter, Roman River, Bourne, and Slade), though also com-
paratively modern, are older and of more-natural origin than
the foregoing, some being at least a century old and a few still
older. This leaves no more than eight Essex rivers (namely,
Thames, Lea, Ingrebourne, Crouch, Pant (or Blackwater),
Colne, Stour, and Cam) the names of which can be regarded as
genuinely-ancient and bona-fide—a somewhat-ignominious con-
clusion to be forced to arrive at.
THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB—REPORTS OF
MEETINGS
SPRING RAMBLE IN EPPING FOREST AND VISIT TO
GILLWELL HALL, SEWARDSTONE (611th MEETING).
SATURDAY, 24TH APRIL, 1925.
Favoured by an unexpectedly fine day in an unusually rainy period
(April having decided to forgo its "shoures sote" and to go dry for the
nonce), a party of over 50 members celebrated the return of spring by a
natural history ramble through the Forest glades, coupled with an
invitation-visit to Gillwell Hall, the headquarters of the Boy Scouts'
Association.
Assembling at Chingford railway station at 11 o'clock the party at
once struck into the woodlands in the direction of "Cuckoo Pits," where
lunch was duly celebrated at the fitting hour.
During the ramble open ear was kept for the spring bird-migrants,
and of these Nightingale, Cuckoo, Chiff Chaff, Willow Wren, Tree Pipit,
and Whitethroat were heard, as were also, among many others, Great
Spotted Woodpecker and Tawny Owl.