Although much information concerning their captures is undoubtedly lost,
some of the more notable are mentioned in the works of J. F. Stephens (1828-
1832). The monographs of Stephens heralded a period of rapid growth in
knowledge of the British beetle fauna. In the process, Epping Forest, close to
the metropolis, received its share of attention from coleopterists. E. C.
Doubleday, a member of the well-known family of Essex natural historians
collected beetles in the Epping area, some of his finds achieving mention in
print (Doubleday, 1836). A list of notable captures at nearby Hainault was
published by J. S. Norman (1844). Interest in the Epping Forest beetle fauna
continued, culminating in extensive collecting by several of the leading
coleopterists of the late 19th and early 20th century. Notable among these are
G. C. Champion and Horace Donisthorpe (collections of both now in the British
Museum (Natural History), E. A. Newbery and G. W. Nicholson (collections of
both in the University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge). Newbery also collected
in the outlying area of Highams Park. These coleopterists published little in
relation to their finds, although a number of the rarer species found by
Champion at Loughton are noted in the great work of Canon Fowler (1886-
1891). In the same period F. B. Jennings (1899, etc.) and H. E. Box (1917),
whose collection is now in the British Museum (Natural History), collected and,
in some instances, published records of Epping Forest beetles, while H. C.
Dollman (1913), S. R. Ashby, E. C. Bedwell (1909) and P. Harwood, amongst
others, also collected beetles in the Forest.
Extensive collecting in the 1930s and 1940s by W. O. Steel and F. D. Buck
led to the eventual publication (Buck, 1955) of a provisional list of Epping
Forest Coleoptera. Contributing to Buck's account and, in some cases, con-
tinuing subsequently was the work of A. A. Allen (1942 etc.), E. S. Brown, J. H.
Flint, H. W. Forster (1950, etc.), A. H. Sculthorp(1951, etc.), R. D. Weal, and
others. The most recent generation of British coleopterists have paid less at-
tention to the Forest and the past twenty years have seen the publication of few
records or notes concerning its beetle fauna. This decline in interest is due in
part, I suspect, to the view that the Forest fauna is already well known, that
many of the more unusual species are now extinct or extremely rare there, and
that the most interesting parts of the Forest, to the amateur collector of beetles,
are heavily trampled and otherwise disturbed. However, despite these prevailing
(and, to my own mind, probably exagerrated) views, some additional beetle
species of interest have been detected, for example by B. Levey and the present
writer, during this period. The more important published sources, including all
those dealing specifically with the beetle fauna of the Forest, are included in the
bibliography which follows this paper.
ADDITIONS AND AMENDMENTS TO THE LIST OF EPPING FOREST
BEETLES
Dealing with only the main body of the Forest, that portion south of
Epping Town and north of Chingford, and including none of the outlying
44