CLASS MAMMALIA. 55
Club's Museum at Chingford. It was reputed to have been
imported with young fox cubs. A notice of it, by the late
Mr. Joseph Clarke, F.S.A., is printed in Journ. Proc. Essex
Field Club (vol. iv., p. ccviii). A sketch of this specimen, by
Mr. H. A. Cole, is here produced. Another notice of the
supposed occurrence of this animal in Epping Forest appeared
in Land and Water (July 19th, 1884, p. 64). It transpired
afterwards that the experts had made a mistake; for further
examination of evidence proved that the so-called Wolf was,
in reality, a North African Jackal (Journ, of Proc. Essex
Field Club, vol. iv., p. cciv.). Whatever the animal may
have been, it cannot be claimed as a legitimate member
of our Fauna; but, as there are very probably other indi-
viduals of the same species in existence in the Forest, it can
hardly be passed over without mention.]
Sub Order CARNIVORA PINNIPEDIA.
Family PHOCIDAE.
Genus, PHOCA, Linn.
Phoca vitulina, Linn. Common Seal.
This Seal occurs sparingly on all parts of the Essex coast,
but it is not seen every year. Specimens have been killed in
the Stour, the Blackwater, in the mouth of the Thames,
and in other places. Properly speaking, all the Seals taken
on our shores can only be considered as stragglers.
Two were observed in the Stour, between Harwich and
Manningtree, in 1854 (Field, March 11th, p. 220). The young
one was shot by a Stour puntsman near Mistley ; but the
older Seal, after being wounded by Mr. F. G. Folkard, was
abandoned, and probably drifted on shore.
Mr. E. A. Fitch records (Essex Nat., vol. ii., p. 3) the capture
of two in the Blackwater and also of one in the Roach river.
The former were shot by a Maldon fisherman on January 19th,
1881, the day following the remarkable snow-storm, when, as
Mr. Fitch points out, the condition of the river Blackwater,
choked with snow and ice, strangely resembled the native