A HISTORY OF ESSEX the ornithologist's point of view, no part of Essex equals our coast in interest. Among the more interesting of the birds breeding round our coast is the black-headed gull, called formerly in Essex the ' pewit ' or ' puit.' Though now much reduced in number and having only one or two breeding-stations, its former abundance may be inferred from the fact that no fewer than three islands round our coast bear the name ' Pewit Island,' because each had formerly upon it a large nesting-colony of this species : (i) a large island in Hamford Water ; (2) a smaller one near Mersea ; and (3) another near Bradwell. As long ago as 1662, Fuller made the following quaint reference to the breeding of this gull on the the first-named island (Worthies^ p. 318) : There is an island of some two hundred acres, near Harwich, in the parish of Little Okeley, in the manour of Matthew Gilly, Esquire, called the Puit Island, from Puits [which are] in effect the sole inhabitants thereof. . . . On Saint George his day [April 23rd] precisely (so I am informed by Captain Farmer, of Newgate Market, copyholder of the Island), they pitch on the Island, seldom laying fewer than four or more than six eggs. Great [is] their love to their young ones ; for though against foul weather they make to the mainland (a certain Prognostick of Tempests), yet they always weather it out on the Island when hatching their young ones, seldom sleeping whilst they sit on their eggs (afraid, it seems, of Spring-tides), which signifieth nothing as to securing their eggs from the inundation, but is an argument of their great Affection. Being [i.e. when] young, they consist onely of bones, feathers, and lean flesh, which hath a raw gust [i.e. taste] of the sea. But Poulterers take them and feed them with Gravel and Curds (that is Physick and Food), the one to scour, the other to fat them in a fortnight, and their flesh thus recruited is most delicious. Fuller's statements as to the habits of the bird must not, however, be taken too literally. The seas adjacent to our coast require notice in connection with the county. During summer they are singularly devoid of bird life, for our coast is totally unprovided with those rocky cliffs and eminences which most sea-birds require as breeding places. From the end of summer however right on to the beginning of the following breeding season the sea off our coast and the estuaries of our rivers swarm with gulls, divers, grebes, shearwaters, petrels, guillemots, razorbills, ducks, and geese. The brent goose (called locally 'black goose'), which formerly appeared off our coast in almost fabulous numbers, is still numerous whenever the weather becomes severe. Old sportsmen tell of these birds having appeared formerly ' by the acre ' on the Main and in our larger estuaries, making huge areas of the sea appear black from a distance ; while the numbers reported as having been killed by a single discharge of a punt gun, or by several such guns fired simultaneously into a flock, seem almost incredible. Thus a Maldon gunner, shooting by himself, is said to have killed on one occasion fifty geese by a single discharge of his gun ; while, as to organized shoots, it is said that, on various occasions, the following numbers have been obtained: 145 birds by two gunners; 160 birds by several gunners; 300 birds by twelve gunners; 360 birds by seventeen gunners ; and 704 birds by thirty-two gunners. Nowadays, however, the geese are so much disturbed, owing 234
