PREFACE. 



THE publication of this work is an attempt to meet what 

 has, I believe, been a long-felt want, similar works 

 having met with acceptance in most other counties. 



Students of Nature have ever been fully alive to the 

 importance of works describing the Fauna of Counties or 

 other local areas. From such works, the larger general 

 histories of particular countries and regions are built up. 

 Ornithologists, especially, have been very active in publishing 

 local works of this kind. There are now very few of the 

 larger and more important English counties in which some 

 attempt has not been made by a local observer to describe in 

 the form of a book the species of birds which have been 

 observed from time to time to frequent his own particular 

 district. Stevenson's Birds of Norfolk, Mitchell's Birds of 

 LancasJiirc, Clarke and Roebuck's Vertebrata of Yorkshire, 

 Babington's Birds of Suffolk, Harting's Birds of Middlesex, 

 Macpherson and Duckworth's Birds of Cumberland, Smith's 

 Birds of Souiersctshire, and Mansell-Pleydell's Birds of Dor- 

 setsJiire, are a few good instances of the kind of work referred 

 to, while there are many more, equally worthy of mention, 

 and others are known to be in preparation. Hitherto, how- 

 ever, the birds of Essex have not found a chronicler. It is 

 to supply this omission that I have laboured. 



My present work, for which I have been collecting in- 

 formation and materials for over fifteen years, will, I trust, 

 interest all lovers of Nature, and, in particular, all bird- 

 students, not only within our own county but also through- 

 out Great Britain. 



