NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 39 



woodland or marshland, inland or littoral, before one is in a 

 position to estimate the value of the information supplied. This 

 is too troublesome a process to be repeated with equanimity, 

 especially in an age when new books succeed each other in such 

 rapid succession that it is difficult to keep pace with the flow of 

 literature on any given subject. 



Dr. Babington's chapter, however, on the distribution of birds 

 in Suffolk will be read both with pleasure and profit, since it 

 conveys a very fair notion of the physical aspect of the county 

 at the present time, and the changes which have been affected 

 by drainage, cultivation of waste land, disafforesting, and re- 

 planting. 



" The woods and plautations in the county are almost entirely of modern 

 growth ; some timber is also scattered about, but trees of all kinds are 

 diminishing in many parts and perhaps generally ; ancient forests such as 

 those at Staverton and Fakenham are very rare, as are also old woods, 

 those for instance near Needham Market. 



" Of marsh land there is now for the most part no great quantity, and 

 much fen has entirely disappeared. . . . The fens which once occupied a 

 large district about Mildenhall appear to have been drained in the early 

 years of the present century ; the peat remains in a dry form. . . . There 

 are no mountains and no rocks, and even the hills scattered about the 

 county are few and inconsiderable. . . . On the coast there is abundance 

 of sand and shingle, especially on Orford Beach, the acreage of which is 



probably larger than anything else of the kind on the east coast 



Adjoining the sea are considerable estuaries formed by the Stour, the 

 Orwell, and the Deben. . . . There are also large pieces of water of a 

 brackish character, particularly Breydon Water, Lake Lothing, and Thorpe 

 Mere. The large tract of loose blowing sand below which there is chalk at 

 various depths, lying in the north-west part of the county and known as the 

 'Breck District,' is a peculiar feature, having its characteristic avifauna." 



Dr. Babington's sketch of these physical conditions no doubt 

 explains to some extent the distribution of the birds which are to 

 be met with in the county, and accounts for their great variety. 

 He tells us that 247 species may be regarded with reasonable 

 certainty as Suffolk birds, and of these a very large proportion — 

 more than half — are distributed over the whole of the county. 

 It is a little surprising to learn that no ornithologist in Suffolk 

 has detected the presence (even temporarily, as during the period 

 of migration) of the Water Pipit or the White Wagtail, and that 



