BIRDS 



to the increase of the number of gunners and the use of steam-yachts, 

 that their numbers are reduced greatly and such ' shoots ' as those 

 mentioned above occur only in the severest weather, as in January, 1891, 

 when a number of gunners (how many not stated) secured nearly 300 

 birds by a single joint discharge of their guns in the Blackwater estuary, 

 which was then filled with ice. Further information on this subject 

 must be sought in the chapter on wildfowling. 



Thus the surface of the county is considerably diversified, though it 

 lacks entirely those tracts of mountain and wide open moorland which 

 add so much to the richness of the avi-fauna of some more northerly 

 counties. Large inland sheets of fresh water are also entirely lacking ; 

 but there are not a few smaller sheets of ornamental water, chiefly arti- 

 ficial, in parks and pleasure grounds. The largest are those in Wanstead, 

 Gosfield, and Debden Parks. 



Allusion must be made here to the existence of wildfowl decoys. 

 The large number of which traces may yet be found proves that decoy- 

 ing was once an important industry in the county, and old records tell of 

 the immense numbers of wildfowl formerly taken. A large amount of 

 information on this subject is given in the present writer's work, the 

 Birds of Essex (1890), pp. 4771. In all there are, or have been, 

 in the county some thirty-five decoys, of which only two are now 

 worked regularly. Of these thirty-five, all but two are situated close 

 to the coast in most cases actually on the marshes. The two southern- 

 most lie in the parishes of Paglesham and Southminster. Around the 

 shores of the large Blackwater Estuary there are no fewer than twenty 

 (ten on each side), lying chiefly in the parishes of Tillingham (two 

 both still used), Bradwell (two), Steeple, Mayland, Latchingdon, Gold- 

 hanger (four), Tolleshunt D'Arcy (several one still used occasionally), 

 and West Mersea. At Kirby-le-Soken there is one. Around the shores 

 of the Colne Estuary are two decoys ; around those of Hamford Water 

 four ; and on the southern (or Essex) side of the estuary of the Stour 

 four. The remaining two Essex decoys are those already mentioned as 

 being situated inland one (nine acres in extent) beside the river Stour 

 at Wormingford : the other still further inland, between Pond Park 

 Farm and the site of Leighs Priory at Little Leighs, almost in the centre 

 of the county. 1 The only decoys now worked regularly are the Grange 

 and Marsh House decoys, which lie within a mile or so of one another 

 in Tillingham parish. Their annual ' catches ' of fowl have of course 

 fallen off enormously of late, but are still large enough to pay the 

 expenses of working. Fuller information on this subject must be sought, 

 however, in the chapter on wildfowling. 



Essex has been in the past the home of a considerable number of 

 good working ornithologists, who have left us, either in the pages of the 

 natural history journals or among their private papers, many records of 



1 Since the foregoing was written, I have heard of, but not definitely established, the existence of 

 another decoy (the thirty-sixth) at Fobbing. This is the only decoy I ever heard of in Essex anywhere 

 on the banks of the Thames. 



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