This 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 Essex 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 naturalists. Thirty-eight terrestrial mammals—excluding two doubtful 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 additions 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 northwest 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.
