2
THE BIRDS OF ESSEX.
The physical features of every county and district have such a
direct and powerful bearing upon the kinds of birds frequenting them
that some detailed attempt to describe those features should be an
essential part of all avi-faunas.
In More's Distribution of Birds in Great Britain during the
Nesting-season (33), Essex is made to form part of Province III
(Thames), in which it constitutes the eastern half of Sub-province 8,
comprising Essex, Herts, and Middlesex.
As an ornithological hunting-ground, Essex has been especially
favoured by Nature in several different ways. The fact of its being
situated upon the sea-coast is, in the first place, a very great ad-
vantage from the ornithological, as from so many other, points of
view; but the additional facts that it is situated on the East coast of
England, in close proximity to the continent, and in the direct line
of the constant stream of migration which is ever flowing backwards
and forwards across the North Sea, and that its coast-line is
specially suited to attract all kinds of shore-loving birds, still
further show how highly the county has been favoured in these matters.
The advantage of its maritime situation which, under other circum-
stances, might have been largely lost, is thus greatly intensified by
two other concurrent and auxiliary advantages.
In all probability the ornithological riches of Essex are in no
respect inferior to those of the neighbouring county of Norfolk,
which, for wealth of bird-life, has, by common consent, been allowed
to take a place at the head of all the other English counties. It is
very likely that, had the birds of Essex been as attentively studied
as have those of Norfolk, we should have been able to show as long
and as interesting a list as the ornithologists of that county.
The progress of ornithological study in Norfolk affords an ex-
cellent proof of the value of these local bird-lists, as a means of
encouraging the study of birds. The first list of the birds of Norfolk
was written by Sir Thomas Browne, of Norwich, about 1650. Since
then at least ten other lists of Norfolk birds have appeared, as
each writer in turn wished to add his observations to those of his
last predecessor, until now it may be truly said that (perhaps excepting
Yorkshire) Norfolk has produced more county lists and more
working ornithologists, who have between them added more to our
knowledge of British ornithology as a whole, than any other three
English counties combined. If only our illustrious Ray had made
some attempt to produce a list of local birds, similar to that of his
contemporary, Sir Thomas Browne, there is no saying how many
practical Essex ornithologists it might indirectly have brought out,