urban sprawl of Enfield.
Several visits were made in 1965-1967 to Scales Park at Nuthampstead,
High Wood at Wenden Lofts and Rowney Wood at Debden but no signs of
muntjac deer were found in any of these areas. The Forestry Commission's
Forester also considered that Rowney Wood was free of deer at that time
(Waters, personal communication). In January 1971, Beale first saw muntjac in
this part of Essex, in Rowney Wood and Scales Park, although he did not see
them in High Wood until 1976. It is not clear from where the deer came. There
was the unconfirmed report of a muntjac deer at Pampisford, Cambridgeshire
in 1963 and a dead animal was found a few kilometres away at Fowlmere, also
in Cambridgeshire, in 1967. The only muntjac deer records from the adjacent
area of Hertfordshire are post-1974. The deer may, however, have spread north-
wards from the Great Dunmow area to Rowney Wood and then to the other
areas.
There have been several records of single muntjac suddenly appearing in
urban areas. Possibly these animals have travelled along corridors of vegetation,
such as those provided by narrow strips of land bordering railway lines, until the
deer are trapped in built-up areas. The presence of the single animals recorded
at Chelmsford, Chingford, Enfield and West Ham may be explained in this
way. The single animals found at Chelmsford, Chingford, Gosfield, Halstead,
Walton-on-the-Naze and West Ham were all young males and this may be
significant. Dubost (1971), in a study of both the Indian muntjac (M. muntjak
(Zimmermann)) and the Chinese muntjac, states that the young males are
driven out of the family group during their second year by the adult male.
Seear's (1964) belief that the Indian muntjac may be present in the county has
not been confirmed.
Fallow Deer
At the end of the nineteenth century, fallow deer in Essex appear to have
been restricted to the Epping Forest area and to enclosed deer parks (Laver,
1898), now they are widespread over much of the north and west of Essex. What
has caused this dramatic spread of fallow deer? The distribution of the deer
themselves provides a clue to the answer. With the exception of the Epping
Forest group of deer, several of the other groups are located close to a deer park
or a recently disbanded park: compare Maps 1 and 4. The Navestockside group
of fallow deer are almost certainly descendants of animals that escaped from
Weald Park (Plate VIII). Local inhabitants claim that deer were unknown in
the surrounding woods before the Second World War. Similarly, the Markshall
group of fallow are based on the former deer park at Marks Hall. The Hatfield
Forest group of fallow probably originated from this area when it was an en-
closed park and possibly from Hallingbury Park which was adjacent. Deer from
Easton Park may also have contributed to this group, although most if not all
were killed in 1939. Mrs Spurrier informs me that the fallow deer only began to
be seen in the area of the former deer park in the mid-to-late-1950s and that in
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