The Birds of Essex: A Contribution to the Natural History of the Country

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E. Durrant & Company, 1890 - Birds - 302 pages
 

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Page 157 - Dengy,* the other, 1648, in the hundred of Rochford and Isle of Foulness (rented in part by two of my credible parishioners, who attested it, having paid dear for the truth thereof) ; when an army of mice, nesting in ant-hills, as conies in burroughs, shaved off the grass at the bare roots, which withering to dung was infectious to cattle.
Page 82 - an ancient retiring place of some of our Saxon kings, particularly of that simple Saint Edward the Confessor, who took great delight in it as being woody and solitary, fit for his private devotions.
Page 47 - ... and widgeon, of which there are such vast flights, that they tell us the island, namely the creek, seems covered with them, at certain times of the year, and they go from London on purpose for the pleasure of shooting; and indeed often come home very well loaden with game. But it must be...
Page 81 - A RULE FOR BIRDS' NESTERS The robin and the red-breast, The sparrow and the wren; If ye take out o' their nest, Ye'll never thrive again! The robin and the red-breast, The martin and the swallow; If ye touch one o' their eggs, Bad luck will surely follow!
Page 157 - ... sheare and gnaw the grass by the rootes, spoyling and tainting the same with their venimous teeth in such sort, that the cattell which grazed thereon were smitten with a...
Page 49 - Essex, as many poachards have been taken at one drop as filled a wagon, so as to require four stout horses to carry them away ; and the lower birds in the pens have been known to be killed and pressed entirely flat from the numbers of their companions heaped above them by the fatal stoppage of the poles and nets.
Page 221 - A gentleman, to whom this work lies under great obligations for his frequent assistance, has assured us that these birds migrate out of the neighbouring inland counties into the Hundreds of Essex in October, and continue there all the winter. If frost or snow drive them out of the...
Page 278 - Museum, the selection being made by Dr. Taylor (CB !). Inhabits North America, an extremely rare straggler to Britain. *BRUNNICH'S GUILLEMOT, Uria arra (Pallas). 3. One purchased at the Sale of the Sudbury Museum ; it formed part of a case of twelve " British Aquatic Birds " Lot 230 ; but although there is considerable reason for presuming that it was obtained near the mouth of the Orwell or Stour, whence so many of the aquatic birds in that museum came, there is no direct evidence on the point (in...
Page 49 - I have seen the sky darkened by wild geese, covering a space of half a mile by a quarter of a mile, as thick as manure spread upon the ground, and making a noise which I could only compare with fifty packs of hounds in full cry. I have also seen seven acres at low water covered with widgeon, curlew, and ducks, making such a noise that I could not hear my brother talking to me a few yards off. Colonel Russell [the late Colonel Champion Russell, of Stubbers Hall, near Upminster] was off the coast in...
Page 265 - Being young, they consist only of bones, feathers, and leanflesh, which hath a raw gust of the sea. But poulterers take them then, and feed them with gravel and curds (that is, physic and food); the one to scour, the other to fat them in a fortnight ; and their flesh, thus recruited, is most delicious.

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