i r 



ESSEX VERTEBRATES. 



Essex Field Club Special Memoirs. — Vol. III. [ The Mammals, 

 Reptiles, | and | Fishes of Essex: | A Contribution to | the Natural 

 History of the County, j By | Henry Laver, M.R.C.S., F.S.A., F.L.S., | 

 Vice-President of the Essex Field Club, and Senior Surgeon to the Essex 

 and | Colchester Hospital, Colchester. | With eig'ht full-page, and two half- 

 page illustrations. | Chelmsford : j Edmund Durrant & Co., High Street. | 

 Buckhurst Hill: | The Essex Field Club. | London: | Simpkin, Marshall and 

 Co., Ltd., Stationers' Hall Court. | — | 1898. [8vo. cloth, viii. j 138 + four 

 pages + 8 plates.] 



The delay in the notice of this important and most valuable 

 work has arisen from the great stress under which the reviewer 

 has been considerably hindered in his work during- the past two 

 or three years. 



The work is one of the Special Memoirs of the Essex Field 

 Club, and together with Christy's Birds of Essex, forms a com- 

 plete account of the Vertebrata of that county. 



Mr. Laver has long devoted attention to the subject, and has 

 treated it in a most masterly manner, the book abounding in 

 valuable notes and observations of all kinds, although no 

 attempt is made to enter into minute details of distribution. 

 Historical records are carefully noted, as are also interesting 

 details as to habits and variation. 



The book includes records for 38 terrestrial and 10 marine 

 mammals, 4 reptiles, 6 amphibians, and 113 marine and fresh- 

 water fishes, and in the introduction interesting comparisons are 

 made with the Norfolk and the Yorkshire lists. 



In the introduction are also given fish-lists for each of the 

 Essex rivers, and accounts of the fisheries, both sea and fresh- 

 water. 



An appendix gives a long list of works and papers used in 

 the preparation of the book, and a list of subscribers concludes it. 



The illustrations are partly devoted to views of mammalian 

 haunts in the Forest of Epping, such as those of such charac- 

 teristic forest animals as the Badger, Fox, and Deer. Others 

 show fine heads of Fallow and Red Deer, and one plate repre- 

 sents a Common Rorqual captured in the river Crouch. A Jackal 

 caught in Ongar Woods is illustrated, and two plates are views 

 of coast scenery. 



Space forbids our entering into the countless matters oi 

 interest which the book suggests, and it only remains to 

 congratulate the author on his success, and the Essex Field 

 Club on their enterprise in publishing so excellent a book. 



n}oo January 3, 



