CLASS MAMMALIA. 71
Blacks," who surreptitiously carried off large num-
bers. It is obvious, however, that White's reference is to
Waltham Chase, a district in Hampshire, on the borders of
the New Forest. It appears by the Court Rolls of the date
that an order was made to the effect that the stock of Red
and Fallow Deer in Waltham Chase being so low that they
were likely to be extirpated, no more were to be taken for
three years.
In the early part of the eighteenth century, the Royal
buckhounds hunted the Essex Deer. The Treasury Records
show that in 1729 his Majesty's Hounds killed thirteen stags,
and in 1730, nine. Later, the Deer in the Forest were hunted
by Mr. Tylney Long Pole Wellesley, who kept his pack of old-
fashioned staghounds at Wanstead House, and dressed his
servants in Lincoln green. A writer in The Sporting Maga-
zine for April, 1809, states that Mr. Wellesley's hunt was called
the Ladies' Hunt, because so many ladies of the neighbour-
hood joined in it. The meetings were generally at Fence-
piece in Hainault Forest, and upon Easter Monday was held
the anniversary meeting, ending with a dinner and a ball. To
this, it was customary for many Londoners to resort. Some,
of course, were invited guests : others were merely strangers
and lookers on, who had come to enjoy the holiday sports.
During the mastership of Joseph Mellish, Wellesley's pre-
decessor, although the ball and entertainments had not then
been instituted, the annual Easter Hunt was kept up, and
obtained great notoriety as an outing for cockney sportsmen.
It was ridiculed in drawings, and on the stage ; verses were
published in The Sportsman's Vocal Cabinet; and, finally,
Hood, during his residence at Wanstead (1832-4), immor-
talised it in his well-known and witty poem of "the Epping
Hunt," in which he celebrates the little town, justly famed
for butter, and sausages,