Catalogue of the Birds of Suffolk; with an Introduction and Remarks on their Distribution

Abstract

NUMEROUS as have lately been contributions to local British ornithology, the treatment of the subject is very far from being exhausted, and Dr. Babington's book is extremely welcome as supplying a new catalogue of the birds of a county having so favourable a situation as Suffolk. For though wanting the extended sea-board of one neighbour, Norfolk, which meets the uninterrupted roll of the polar waves, and possessing an almost even coast-line, very unlike the irregular contour of its other neighbour, Essex, Suffolk yet contains the most easterly point of England in Lowestoft Ness, as it is still fondly called, though a “ness” is there as hard to recognise in these days as is the “bay” of its historic Solebay, a few miles further south. Suffolk also is not without its “broads”—at Fritton, Oulton, Benacre, and Easton —insignificant as they may be in comparison with those of the northern half of the ancient East Anglian kingdom. It also shares with Norfolk the great Breydon Water, and with Essex the wide mouth of the Stour, while it has for its own the estuaries of the Blythe, the Alde, the Debden, and the Orwell, by no means despicable, even if they are not equal in size to those of the Colne, the Blackwater, and the Crouch, that drain so much of Essex. Suffolk again has a natural feature, the like of which is not possessed by either of its neighbours:—

Catalogue of the Birds of Suffolk; with an Introduction and Remarks on their Distribution.

By Churchill Babington, D.D., &c. Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archæology and Natural History. 8vo, pp. 281. Map and 7 Plates. (London: Van Voorst, 1884–86.)