336
THE ESSEX NATURALIST
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE MAMMAL GROUP, 1964
The Annual General Meeting of the Group was held on January
16, 1964. After the formal part of the meeting, Dr A. M. Davidson
spoke on his studies of British Red Squirrel in Norfolk. This
was followed by a paper by Mr D. Corke on Small Mammal Traps
and Trapping. Mr W. Page commented on the Badger Records
for 1963 and Mr D. Scott gave notes on Hedgehog road deaths
recorded during the year. Finally two films were shown, "River
King", the story of Otters and "The Life of the Rabbit". During
the remainder of the year the Group held three indoor and four
outdoor meetings. The former were "Identification of Deer and
Bats" by Mr A. Heathcote and Mr D. Chapman, "Sex Character-
istics of Bank Voles" by Dr A. M. Davidson, and "Observations
on the Badger in Essex" by Messrs D. Corke, W. Page and D.
Scott.
The outdoor meetings consisted of a small mammal trapping
meeting at Chingford led by Mr D. Corke, a visit to Grahame
Dangerfield's mammal collection at Redbourne and a mammal
study week-end at Fringringhoe Wick Nature Reserve where
some interesting live mammal trapping was carried out, and a
very pleasant week-end was spent. The fourth outdoor meeting
of the year was at Woburn Abbey Park where the Group had a
chance to study, at fairly close quarters, deer in the collection
of the Duke of Bedford. Two Group committee meetings were
held during 1964 and it was considered that the most important
task in hand was to try and encourage new members. The Club's
mammal traps were quite well used during the year. The Long-
worth traps were employed over a total of 616 trap-nights and
made 134 captures. The larger wire type traps, six of which were
purchased this year, were used for 94 trap-nights and made seven
captures. Fuller use would have been made of the traps if more
club members used them. Only one member had traps out on
loan apart from the Mammal Recorder, but they were also used on
two official club meetings.
D. R, Scott.