70 THE MAMMALS, REPTILES, AND FISHES OF ESSEX.
Order RUMINANTIA.
Family CERVIDAE.
Genus Cervus, Linn.
Cervus elaphas, Linn. Red Deer or Stag.
About 1827, according to Mr. J. E. Harting (Trans. Essex
Field Club, vol. i., p. 79) and Mr. E. N. Buxton (Epping Forest,
1897, p. 62), the last Red Deer were removed from Epping
Forest to Windsor. Until that date, this species had con-
tinuously from the earliest times been a resident, in a wild
condition, in this county, as the various mentions of Red
Deer in the Forest Records attest. Under the Forest law of
Canute, deer and boars are among the principal beasts for
the killing of which recompense must be made.
From the time of Edward the Confessor, the Kings have
hunted in Epping Forest. It is said (Nott's ed. of Surrey's
Works, i., xxxiv.) that Henry VIII, was actually enjoying the
sports of the Forest when his Queen Ann Boleyn was executed.
A pre-arranged signal, the report of a distant gun, informed
him of her death. Queen Elizabeth was very fond of shooting
a buck with the cross-bow, and, in May, 1578, she was enter-
tained for several days by the Earl of Leicester at Wanstead
House. In Queen Elizabeth's Lodge, at Chingford, we have
a record of her visits to the Forest.
After the Restoration, £1,000 was expended in restocking
the Forest with Deer (Cal. State Pap. Dom. Chas. II.), which
during the Commonwealth were evidently neglected.
Mr. Harting says (Essex Naturalist, vol. i., p. 54), that,
early in last century, the Deer of Epping Forest decreased
largely in numbers, owing partly to the demands of claims
made for "fee deer," partly (and this he quotes from Gilbert
White's letter to Pennant, Selborne, ed. 1875, pp. 22-23), to
the depredations of the gang known as " Waltham