THE
BIRDS OF ESSEX.
INTRODUCTION.
(a.) The Physical Features of Essex.
ESSEX is a maritime county on the East coast of England.
In shape it is, roughly speaking, square, though its eastern
coast has been rendered very irregular by the action of the sea.
Its area is 1,533 square miles, or 987,032 statute acres. In point of
size, it stands tenth among the English counties, being rather smaller
than Kent and rather larger than Suffolk, between which two counties
it is also geographically situated. On the S., Essex is bounded by
Kent, from which it is separated by the River Thames ; on the
E., by the North Sea or German Ocean ; on the N., partly by Suffolk,
from which it is separated by the River Stour, and partly by
Cambridgeshire, from which (as Norden says) it "hath no riuer to
deuyde it;" and on the W., both by Herts and Middlesex, from which
it is separated by the Rivers Stort and Lea. If, therefore, separation
by rivers makes a peninsula, Essex is one. Its greatest length
(Stratford to Harwich) is 72 miles; but, roughly speaking, the county
measures about 46 miles from E. to W., and 42 from N. to S.*
The chief physical features of the county have been briefly and
well summed up by a recent writer as follows :—" Essex is a fertile
plain, undulating considerably towards the centre and north-west,
richly wooded towards the south-west, and sloping away to low
humid marshes on the east and south-east, where it is bordered by
the sea and the estuary of the Thames, and relieved by rich pasturage
on the banks of its principal rivers which mainly have their course
from N.W. to N.E. and S.E."
The above remarks are taken from my Handbook for Essex (pp. 3 and 4), recently
Published by Messrs. Edmund Durrant & Co., of Chelmsford.
B