ESSEX BIRD PROTECTION SOCIETY. I95 



are only too easily found, and from the indiscriminate shooting 

 of the young birds just on the wing by the cockney sportsmen 

 shooting from boats at the beginning of August. By the exten- 

 sion of the close season to August 15, the young birds and 

 flappers have the advantage of an extra fortnight, which enables 

 them to get fairly strong on the wing before shooting commences, 

 and the total prohibition of Sunday shooting along the coast 

 gives them a further chance. All eggs are now also protected 

 along the coast, and here the Bird Protection Society is fortunate 

 in securing for a small fee the services of 11 persons, mostly 

 fishery inspectors, whose duties and avocations take them con- 

 stantly about the coast, who kindly undertake to act as watchers 

 to see that the provisions of the Order are enforced, and to 

 report offences. 



From the reports made by these watchers, extracts from 

 Avhich are given in the Society's annual report, it will be seen 

 that a distinct increase is to be noted in the numbers of shore 

 breeding birds, and that the provisions of the Protection Order 

 are now fairly well observed. Blackheaded gulls perhaps show 

 the greatest increase, and several new gulleries have been 

 formed ; terns breed regularly still in one or two places, 

 and will it is to be hoped, hold their own ; that 

 beautiful bird the lesser tern breeds in at least one place 

 and the colony which a few years ago was all but extinc 

 is now thriving and on the increase. Redshank and plover abound 

 and ring plover are common enough on the shingle. There are 

 few pleasanter places on a summer's day for an ornithologist 

 than the marshes and sandhills when the saltings are all flushed 

 with thrift, and the air is full of the cries of the blackheaded gulls 

 or terns, redshanks and plover. 



In the south-western part of the County, Epping Forest, 

 with its 6,000 acres, more or less, of woodland and plain, provides 

 a sanctuary for quite a different class of birds, but in its way 

 quite as interesting. To this 6,000 acres must now be added the 

 800 acres of Hainault, on the east of the Roding Valley. Here 

 the protection of birds is looked after by the keepers, under the 

 bye-laws made for the regulation of the Forest, but the lanes and 

 waste strips of the adjoining parishes until lately were the 

 hunting-ground of swarms of East-End bird-catchers. The 

 Protection Order now extends the close time for certain wild 



