A HISTORY OF ESSEX 



the ornithologist's point of view, no part of Essex equals our coast in 

 interest. 



Among the more interesting of the birds breeding round our coast 

 is the black-headed gull, called formerly in Essex the ' pewit ' or ' puit.' 

 Though now much reduced in number and having only one or two 

 breeding-stations, its former abundance may be inferred from the fact 

 that no fewer than three islands round our coast bear the name ' Pewit 

 Island,' because each had formerly upon it a large nesting-colony of this 

 species : (i) a large island in Hamford Water ; (2) a smaller one near 

 Mersea ; and (3) another near Bradwell. As long ago as 1662, Fuller 

 made the following quaint reference to the breeding of this gull on the 

 the first-named island (Worthies^ p. 318) : 



There is an island of some two hundred acres, near Harwich, in the parish of 

 Little Okeley, in the manour of Matthew Gilly, Esquire, called the Puit Island, from 

 Puits [which are] in effect the sole inhabitants thereof. . . . On Saint George his 

 day [April 23rd] precisely (so I am informed by Captain Farmer, of Newgate Market, 

 copyholder of the Island), they pitch on the Island, seldom laying fewer than four or 

 more than six eggs. Great [is] their love to their young ones ; for though against 

 foul weather they make to the mainland (a certain Prognostick of Tempests), yet they 

 always weather it out on the Island when hatching their young ones, seldom sleeping 

 whilst they sit on their eggs (afraid, it seems, of Spring-tides), which signifieth nothing 

 as to securing their eggs from the inundation, but is an argument of their great 

 Affection. Being [i.e. when] young, they consist onely of bones, feathers, and lean 

 flesh, which hath a raw gust [i.e. taste] of the sea. But Poulterers take them and feed 

 them with Gravel and Curds (that is Physick and Food), the one to scour, the other 

 to fat them in a fortnight, and their flesh thus recruited is most delicious. 



Fuller's statements as to the habits of the bird must not, however, be 

 taken too literally. 



The seas adjacent to our coast require notice in connection with the 

 county. During summer they are singularly devoid of bird life, for our 

 coast is totally unprovided with those rocky cliffs and eminences which 

 most sea-birds require as breeding places. From the end of summer 

 however right on to the beginning of the following breeding season the 

 sea off our coast and the estuaries of our rivers swarm with gulls, divers, 

 grebes, shearwaters, petrels, guillemots, razorbills, ducks, and geese. 



The brent goose (called locally 'black goose'), which formerly 

 appeared off our coast in almost fabulous numbers, is still numerous 

 whenever the weather becomes severe. Old sportsmen tell of these 

 birds having appeared formerly ' by the acre ' on the Main and in our 

 larger estuaries, making huge areas of the sea appear black from a 

 distance ; while the numbers reported as having been killed by a single 

 discharge of a punt gun, or by several such guns fired simultaneously 

 into a flock, seem almost incredible. Thus a Maldon gunner, shooting 

 by himself, is said to have killed on one occasion fifty geese by a single 

 discharge of his gun ; while, as to organized shoots, it is said that, on 

 various occasions, the following numbers have been obtained: 145 birds 

 by two gunners; 160 birds by several gunners; 300 birds by twelve 

 gunners; 360 birds by seventeen gunners ; and 704 birds by thirty-two 

 gunners. Nowadays, however, the geese are so much disturbed, owing 



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