2 6 NOTES — ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 



Mr. W. H. Dalton, F".G.S., author of the very interesting paper on " Fowlness '' 

 in The Essex Naturalist for 1889 (vol. iii., p. 239), has written vigorously 

 in defence of the true orthography: — "As a native of this interesting, if not 

 romantic, island (and proud of the fact), allow me to point out that on a few 

 occasions a properly educated official has used the above orthography ; that it has 

 to my knowledge been used for forty-five }'ears in the local centre of light and 

 leading, the rector}', and elsewhere ; that it was changed from Vogelnase, 

 Fughelnesse, and Foulenesse, to Fowlnesse (Jemp. Will, et Mar.') in accordance 

 with the general name for wild birds, and that the retention of the " u " is both 

 incorrect and misleading. A parallel name, Foulmire, in Cambridgeshire, was a 

 few months ago corrected to Fowlmere by the Post-office authorities, on precisely 

 similar evidence. If any real change of name be adopted, I would suggest 

 ' Fowlers' Island,' as connoting the presence of both feathered and unfeathered 

 bipeds. The only objection to any change is that when, by the exploitation of 

 the mineral wealth of Essex, the Crouch and other estuaries come to resemble 

 the Wear and Tyne, with their fleets of collier craft, the present common mis- 

 spelling may become appropriate. I may add that natives speak of ' Fow'ness ' ; 

 it is on]}' the inhabitants of the adjacent island of Great Britain that sound the 

 ' 1,' the elision of which necessitates the use of ' w,' as the diphthong ' ou ' would 

 sound differently before a single consonant." In a later letter, alluding to an 

 idea put forward in the newspapers that the name had some reference to the form 

 of the promontory, Mr. Dalton continues : — " I take it that the name Fowlness 

 was not applied from any resemblance to a bird's beak, which is indeed perceptible 

 only to a poetic mind, aided by a map, but frcm its being emphatically the ' ness ' 

 frequented by wildfowl. The broad, sandy flat running out as a sharp promontory 

 (naze, nose, or ness), affords still, despite the cannonade from Shotbury, a feed- 

 ing-place for myriads of birds of many species, being not only a gathering ground 

 for organic refuse brought down by the Thames and Medway, but the crowded 

 habitat of cockles, worms, and other marine consumers of garbage, who there 

 iulfil the great law, ' Eat and be eaten.' That the name applied primarily to the 

 sands is evident from the rounded outline of the enclosed land till within a period 

 much more recent than the name. If we cut back the land in imagination to the 

 road leading from the Crouch through Courtsend to Eastwick and the Rugvvood 

 Head road, a curved line which is evidently that of an old wall, we shall have 

 nothing worth the name of ness. There is yet much to be learned about not 

 only the nomenclature, but the former geography of our Essex estuaries. Within 

 the memory of even young men, considerable changes have occurred, in the loss 

 of land here, and its increase there. W'heu to the effect of alterations in the set 

 of tidal currents we add that of oscillations of level, as evidenced in raised beaches 

 and submerged forests, it becomes clear that our present iraps do not show tlie 

 past, an}- more than the future, outline of our county." 



From the many letters in the local papers on this subject, we extract the 

 following interesting particulars from an anonymous correspondent (" Bird of 

 Prey, Oxon.") in "The Essex Herald," for January loth : — "Concerning the 

 earliest records of Fowlness, anciently written Fughelness, it may be of interest 

 to state that although there is ro actual mention of it in Domesday Book, a 

 note appended to the translation of Domesday says, ' There is little doubt that 

 Foulness Island was included in some of these estates of Suene in Rochford 

 Hundred.' This takes us bark to the time of the Danes towards the end of the 

 tenth century, implying that the island was, at any rate in part, reclaimed before 



