xx Appendix No. 1.
Jays. They are utterly destructive of the nests of all birds which do not
build in holes, and the condition of the Forest being very favourable to
them, they are multiplying exceedingly. The Conservators do not allow
keepers to use guns,—quite rightly, I think,—and although they have
permitted traps for the purpose of catching the jays, I do not think the
keepers are much up to this kind of work. I think it would not be
amiss if the Club would make a suggestion on the subject. I would
gladly have attended the meeting on Saturday if I were at home, but I
shall be elsewhere."
Mr. W. Saville Kent, F.L.S., F.R.M.S, (author of the 'Manual of the
Infusoria,' and late Naturalist to the Brighton Aquarium), wrote:—
" Although I cannot be present with you in person to-morrow afternoon,
I most thoroughly sympathize with the object of your meeting ; and most
sincerely trust that your meritorious efforts to abate the present wholesale
extermination of our indigenous animals and plants, and destruction of
notable habitats, will meet with the success they so richly deserve. The
reward which has attended your exertions on behalf of Epping Forest
must, I am sure, prove an incentive to further efforts; and I greatly
deplore that such a Society as ours was not in existence to interpose its
regis in the defence of Hampstead Heath, and half-a-dozen other
localities I might name, once the 'happy hunting grounds' of the
zoologist, botanist, and microscopist, but now converted by deep drainage
and other barbarous 'improvements' to barren wastes."
Letters of sympathy and regret at enforced absence were also read from
Mr. D. J. Morgan (the newly appointed Verderer in the place of the late
Sir Antonio Brady), Mr. E. G. Varenne (of Kelvedon), Mr. Henry
Laver, F.L.S. (Hon. Secretary to the Colchester Natural History Society),
and others.
After some further discussion,
Dr. Cooke offered to write out his views, and the reasons for those
views, to be laid before the Conservators. Before doing so, he would
bring the subject before the two societies with which he was connected,
which were principally interested in microscopical life, and would ask
each of them to forward a resolution to the Essex Field Club ; and then
fall back upon those two societies, and ask them to supplement it by
memorials of their own. He thought there was no doubt that from both
of those societies he should be able to get strong protests against the
destruction of the natural conditions of life in the Forest and elsewhere.
It was agreed that a memorial should be drawn up in accordance with
the views expressed at the meeting, and that, when printed, copies should
be sent to the Conservators, to landowners, to game-preservers, and to the
Press. With this understanding the discussion terminated.
[In accordance with the above resolution, the three following memorials
have been prepared by members of the Club specially acquainted with the
matters in question. Dr. Cooke speaks as a student of minute life, and