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NATURE 



[October 9, 1890 



CHRISTY'S "BIRDS OF ESSEX." 

 The Birds of Essex : a Contribution to the Natural 



History of the County. By Miller Christy, F.L.S., 



8vo. (Chelmsford and London : 1890.) 

 « T_J ITHERTO," truly observes the author of this work 



1j- in his Preface, "the birds of Essex have not 

 found a chronicler. It is to supply this omission that I 

 have laboured." The omission has indeed been long re- 

 gretted, and every page of his book shows that Mr. 

 Christy has laboured hard to supply it, so much so that 

 it would seem an act as ungenerous as it is certainly un- 

 pleasing to find any fault with him for the way in which 

 he has performed his task ; but the duty of a reviewer is 

 one neither to be lightly entered upon nor lightly executed, 

 and misplaced tenderness may easily be as harmful in a 

 critic as in a surgeon. 



There is fortunately in these days no need to dwell on 

 the advantage of county ornithologies— even the worst of 

 them is better than none at all. Mr. Christy's is very far 

 from being among those that are bad ; but it does seem 

 to us that more skilful treatment would have secured for 

 Essex a less insipid result than he has given us ; for the 

 county of the greatest English naturalist should surely 

 present a more becoming figure than here appears. Its 

 geographical position, its sufficiently varied natural 

 features — and among them especially its wealth of 

 estuaries, so grateful to scores of graceful birds — seem to 

 point it out as one of the most favoured parts of the king- 

 dom. We can hardly admit the value of Mr. Christy's 

 supposition (pp. 2, 3) that — 



" If only our illustrious Ray had made some attempt to 

 produce a list of local birds, similar to that of his con- 

 temporary. Sir Thomas Browne, there is no saying how 

 many practical Essex ornithologists it might indirectly 

 have brought out, or to what a pitch of ornithological 

 eminence the county might by this time have been 

 raised." 



When will naturalists think the history of their study 

 worth studying? Nothing can be more certain than that 

 the now celebrated "Account of Birds found in Norfolk," 

 by Sir Thomas Browne, remained in manuscript until 

 printed by Wilkin in 1835 ; and, while very few could 

 have been aware of its existence, fewer still could have 

 read its crabbed handwriting. As a matter of fact, we 

 believe it was unknown to every ornithologist until it was 

 published. On the other hand, Mr. Christy shows that 

 almost from Ray's time to the present day Essex has not 

 been wanting in observers of birds, who really seem to 

 have had it in them to do as much good work as those of 

 the not very distant and more northern county, whom he 

 evidently and not unjustly regards with a kind of modified 

 envy. But our author may get some comfort by looking 

 southward across the wide Thames, and there contemplat- 

 ing in a still nearer neighbour a county whose ornitho- 

 logy, as we have before remarked in these columns, is 

 yet unwritten as it should be. 



Mr. Christy rightly remarks that " some detailed 

 attempt" to describe the physical features of every 

 county or district should be an essential part of each local 

 "avifauna," but he unfortunately favours us with barely 

 three pages of such description. Now we are sure that 

 he might have told us a good deal more on this subject 

 NO. 1093, VOL. 42] 



that would have been well worth knowing. He divides- 

 his county into five districts, which is doubtless well 

 enough, if we can forgive the incongruity of the last : — 

 (i) The Chalky Uplands, (2) The Lowlands, (3) The 

 Forests and Woodlands, (4) The Marshes and Saltings, 

 (5) The Open Sea ! The first of these, a very small but 

 well-defined area, has probably, through enclosure and 

 tillage, undergone more change within the last 70 or 

 80 years — or even less — than any of the rest ; for the 

 second has been highly cultivated for centuries, and the 

 third— though Mr. Christy thinks that strictly speaking it 

 cannot be separated from the second — in some sort 

 possesses the appearance it must have worn (if not the 

 fauna it harboured) in the middle ages when, if we may 

 believe the chroniclers, the citizens of London went forth 

 to slay wild bulls and wild boars within its precincts— a 

 trace of the practice being retained in the "Epping 

 Hunt" of Easter Monday, which some of us are old 

 enough to remember, and others may be reminded of by 

 Hood's comic verses. But the fourth of Mr. Christy's 

 districts may be considered the most characteristic of 

 Essex, and we think he might advantageously have told 

 us much more about it, especially about the islands — if 

 islands, except in popular speech, they may be rightly 

 called — into which the land, as it were, breaks up— 

 Canvey, Foulness (a most suggestive name), Osea, 

 Mersea, and others. One would think they cannot be 

 all alike, and would like to know wherein they differ. 

 The same may be said of the rivers — and the rivers of 

 Essex are rather fine things in their way ; the many- 

 mouthed Crouch is not exactly similar to the spacious 

 Blackwater, any more than is the narrow Colne (in 

 happier times glorying in its abundance of " natives ") 

 to the lake-like Stour, which the county shares with 

 Suffolk. As to the fifth district, only a technical objec- 

 tion could be raised, and that would be against the use 

 of the epithet " open." A maritime county must have a 

 sea-border, and it stands to reason that a fair portion of 

 the adjacent salt water should be regarded as adscriptus 

 glebes, but no attempt is made to define that portion. 

 Considering the shallow soundings off the Essex coast,, 

 perhaps the political " three mile limit " might be the best 

 to choose ; but again, considering the paucity of bird-life 

 in the summer time in this narrow sea, and the know- 

 ledge that in winter one part of it is nearly as good as 

 another, this does not much matter, and if Mr. Christy 

 would extend his survey to the halfway line between 

 England and Belgium, there is none to take exception 

 thereto. In truth Essex, owing to its want of cliffs— for 

 there is nothing save near Walton-on-the-Naze entitled to 

 be so-called— and of beaches, such as those of Orford or 

 Dungeness possessed by its neighbours, has nowadays 

 nothing except the Little Tern,i that can be called pecu- 

 liarly a shore-bird, for he properly denies (pp. 100, ioi> 

 the claim set up by the late Dr. Bree for the " Mud-lark " 

 {Anthus obscurus), and, as all ought to know, the Ringed 

 Plover will breed far inland ; but we think he has missed 

 an opportunity in not applying to the Migration Com- 



I There can be hardly a doubt that the Common and perhaps the Sandwich 

 Tern bred formerly on the Essex coast, but everyone knows how easily a 

 settlement of either may be destroyed in a few hours by some heedless person 

 who thinks himself a sportsman or a naturalist-so that all around ourshores- 

 both species are being yearly extirpated from spot after spot. Mr. Christy » 

 evidence (pp. 261, 262) as to the Black Tern, not that it is littoral species^ 

 breeding in the county, amounts to nothing if properly scrutinized. 



