BEETLES IN EPPING FOREST
by PETER HAMMOND
Dept. of Entomology, British Museum (Natural History) London S. W. 7.
INTRODUCTION
Occasioned as it is by the Centenary of the Epping Forest Act of 1878, it
would be appropriate in this review of the Forest's beetle fauna to discuss
changes which have taken place during the past one hundred years. Indeed,
provision of an historical "back-drop" of this type might be seen as an essential
preliminary to a commentary on the Forest's present fauna, to comparisons
with the faunas of other old forests and areas of park-woodland, and to a
discussion of conservation needs. However, as is so frequently the case in
matters relating to the distribution, frequency and abundance of species of
beetles in the British Isles (see Hammond, 1974), data regarding the beetle
fauna of Epping Forest available in published, or otherwise readily accessible,
form are a poor basis for any discussions of this kind. Regrettably then, the
major part of the present paper represents an attempt to supplement the data
base itself.
Additional data are presented here in a much summarized and contracted
form. In the limited space available it has not been possible to detail and
document to any great extent, but it is hoped that this information, along with
that concerning other parts of Essex, will be made available in due course. Data
presented here derives from an account of the beetle fauna of the county as a
whole (Hammond, unpublished work).
I have attempted to include a good measure of analysis and comment on
the beetle fauna of the Forest by combining this with the new data to be
presented in the form of tables below (notably Tables 6 & 7). More extensive
comment is brief, but touches on the contribution which a fuller knowledge of
Epping Forest's beetle fauna might make to our understanding of the relict
fauna and flora of those tracts of mature British woodland which have had a
more or less uninterrupted existence during the past 8,000 or so years. In
particular, I have referred to the use of certain beetle species as indicators of
Old Forest conditions.
HISTORY OF THE STUDY OF EPPING FOREST COLEOPTERA
A number of British entomologists in the immediate post-Linnaean period
and the early nineteenth century collected beetles in the Epping Forest area.
43