THE EPPING HUNT.
31
politan districts members, that the removal of our main collections to the centre
of the county may not weaken the sympathy of such members in the Club's
work. The branch Museum at Chingford, if carried into being, will be wel-
comed by all intelligent visitors to the Forest, and the Council asks for the
active support of the metropolitan members to an institution mainly promoted in
their interests.
The Council has unanimously recommended Mr. Chancellor's re-election as
President for the ensuing year.
In conclusion, the Council may justly congratulate the members on the
position the Club has attained, and the extensive and useful programme of work
to be carried out during the next few years. The Club only requires an in-
creased membership, and a somewhat greater interest to be taken in its work and
progress by the inhabitants of the county generally, to become a really impor-
tant local institution.
THE EPPING HUNT.
NOTES FROM A "MEMORANDUM AS TO THE RIGHT OF
THE CITIZENS OF LONDON TO HUNT IN ITS VICINITY,
INCLUDING EPPING FOREST."
THE enlightened liberality of the representatives of the late
Mr. Henry Ford Barclay has placed at the disposition of the
Council of the Essex Field Club a number of MSS. and printed docu-
ments and pamphlets of various kinds, which came into that gentle-
man's possession when a member of the Epping Forest Commission
of 1871, and also as a Verderer of the Forest. The records of the
Commission are enshrined in four great folio volumes of a thousand
pages each, a copy of which is accessible in the Guildhall Library.
And four volumes containing manuscript copies of a mass of docu-
ments put in evidence at the time, have recently found their way to
the Public Record Office, and are included among the Departmental
Records of H.M. Office of Works—a series only accessible, it may be
added, under special permit. But the "Memorandum as to the right
of the Citizens of London to hunt in its vicinity, including Epping
Forest," recently sent to me for examination by the Editor of The
Essex Naturalist, is not, so far as I know, included in either set.
Whether it is or is not, a short account of it will, I think, prove a
not unwelcome addition to the notes on the Forest which, from time
to time, find a place in these pages.
The Memorandum in question is rather in the nature of the
famous chapter entitled : "Of snakes in Iceland" ; for, while