THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
77
will no doubt linger in the memories of those who were present
at the meeting (Ibid XL, 294.)2
Such papers as those referred to have in many cases also
comprised most important contributions to the County Fauna,
but most of our purely faunistic work appears in the form of special
memoirs, local lists, notes communicated to our Editor or in
reports of field-meetings. I have not attempted to collate all the
records contained in the stray notes scattered throughout our
publications, but I may call attention to the larger systematic
works and papers. In the first place two of our Special Memoirs
are faunistic in character, the Birds of Essex, by Mr. Miller
Christy, published in 1891, and the Mammals, Reptiles and Fishes
of Essex, by our former President, Mr. Laver, published in 1898.
These two volumes together furnish a complete list of the
Vertebrate animals of our County. A preliminary list of the
Mammalia was communicated to the Club by Mr. Laver in 1881
(Trans., II., 157). In addition to these two Special Memoirs
many papers and notes relating to the Vertebrate Fauna of
Essex will rank as permanent contributions to local natural
history. The Epping Forest deer formed the subject of a paper
by Mr. Harting in 1884 (Essex Naturalist, I., 46) and the so-
called "wolf" of the Forest had his true history narrated and
stripped of romance by our Hon. Secretary in a supplement to
the fourth and last volume of the Proceedings (IV., cciv). Those
casual visitors to our shores, the whales, have also been duly
recorded, the first Rudolphi's Rorqual by Sir Wm. Flower in
1883 (Trans., IV., iii.), the second by Mr. Walter Crouch in
1887 (Essex Naturalist, II., 41), and the third, also by Mr.
Crouch, in 1891 (Ibid. V., 124; VII., 50). The bats of Epping
Forest are recorded from the late Mr. Edward Newman's list in
an appendix to the inaugural address (Trans., I., 23) and again
in the Essex Naturalist with descriptive notes by Mr. Cole
(IX., 134.)
The birds of Essex have been kept well under observation
since the foundation of the Club. The occurrence of the Great
Bustard and the Rough-legged Buzzard, near Chelmsford, was
the first ornithological contribution from Mr. Miller Christy in
1880 (Proc, L, v. ; Trans. I., 59). Mr. Christy's Special Memoir
above referred to is universally regarded as the standard
monograph on our avifauna. You will be glad to learn that
2 Mr. Smith's first paper on the Spiders of Epping Forest was read at the meeting of the
Club on March 8th, 1902.