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 theW,, 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. 



