NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 227 
The Mammals, Reptiles, and Fishes of Essex. By Henry Laver, 
M.R.C.S., &c. Chelmsford: Edmund Durrant & Co.; 
. Buckhurst Hill: The Essex Field Club ; London: Simpkin, 
Marshall & Co. Limited. 
Tuts publication forms Vol. III. of the ‘‘ Essex Field Club 
Special Memoirs,” and is a welcome addition to our county 
faunistic lists. With Mr. Miller Christy’s ‘Birds of Essex’ we now 
possess handbooks—so far as present knowledge permits—of the 
vertebrate fauna of the county. 
Essex offers unusual advantages to the naturalist; Epping 
Forest alone is a household word; it possesses a sea-board; six 
rivers—Thames, Lea, Chelmer, Blackwater, Colne, and Stour— 
afford means of investigation in the freshwater fauna; there are 
wide margins of marsh; whilst now that environmental conditions 
are more studied it must be remembered that “ the climate of 
Hssex is dry, the average rainfall being lower than in any other 
English county.” To these natural advantages may be added 
the institution of the “Epping Forest and County of Essex 
Naturalists’ Field Club,” which has really fostered the study of 
the local natural history, and focussed the work of Essex natu- 
ralists. Thirty-eight terrestrial mammals—excluding two doubt- 
ful Bats (Rhinolophus ferrum-equinum and Vespertilio murinus), 
and an introduced species of Jackal—are enumerated, and ten 
marine mammals, which, however, include so scarce or unwilling 
a visitor as the Sperm Whale (Physeter macrocephalus). In the 
Reptilia, besides the Viviparous Lizard and the Blind Worm, the 
Common Snake, three Batrachians, and three Newts are found. 
The Natterjack Toad has still to be discovered and recorded. In 
Fishes 113 species are enumerated, but here of course large addi- 
tions will constantly be made as the marine fauna is more studied. 
Local lists of fishes in the different rivers supply a want, though 
none was procurable relating to the Cam, which rises in the north- 
west corner of the county, but soon leaves the district. This river 
“holds two species, apparently naturally absent from all the rest 
of our Essex rivers,” the Grayling, lately introduced into the Lea, 
and the Spined Loach. 
Some beautiful illustrations by Mr. H. A. Cole embellish a 
small but most useful book. 
Q 2 
