in life, taking up the Coleoptera and Hymenoptera (Aculeata) in the early 1880s. and other orders,
such as the Odonata still later. Volume III of the Essex Naturalist (1889) reports his presentation of a
paper to the Field Club on the rarer Coleoptera of the Colchester district, together with an accolade
as 'a name known all over England' from E. A. Fitch, then the President of the Club. Harwood's
sons seem to have shared his enthusiasm for the 'other orders' during these closing decades of the
century, judging from their surviving diaries (kept. now. by the Hope Department of Entomology.
Oxford University Museum), and by their contributions to the entomological literature of the
time.
Naturally enough, it is to Harwood that we are indebted for the first genuinely county-wide
report on the dragonflies of Essex. This is given in his section on 'Insects' in the Victoria County
History (Harwood, 1903). Harwood listed twenty-eight species, but seven of these (L. dubia.
S. scoticum (= S .danae). L. fulva. G. vulgatissimus. C. tenellum. I. pumilio and C. pulchellum) were
merely drawn from Doubleday's (1871) list without further information. Another of Doubleday's
species. L. virens was bracketed as doubtfully British. Harwood also incorporated F. A. Walker's
Wanstead list, with the possibly significant exception of the latter's report of Coenagrion pulchellum.
Harwood's own records of Sympetrum flaveolum were also included, along with notes on a 'swarm'
of another migratory species, Libellula quadrimaculata. Interestingly. Anax imperator was given as
'now a rarity in the county' whilst Aeshna mixta was reported to be considered still a rare and local
insect but which was extending its range and had increased its numbers over the previous two
years.
Harwood credited one 'Mr. C. R. Briggs' with two particularly interesting records. One is for
Platycnemis pennipes, a subsequent record to its appearance on Doubleday's list, but Harwood gave
no further details. The other record from Briggs was (or Lestes dryas, 'one of our rarest species', a
single specimen of which was taken by Briggs near Leigh in 1891. Harwood's source was almost
certainly the entomologist C. A. Briggs, a Fellow of the Entomological Society of London and a
member of the South London Entomological and Natural History Society (later the British
Entomological and Natural History Society) in the closing decades of the century. Briggs was
primarily a lepidopterist, but acquired an interest in Odonata and Ephemeroptera from about
1892.
Briggs was also quoted in W. J. Lucas's classic book British Dragon/lies (1900b). His records of L.
dryas and P pennipes were mentioned by Lucas, as well as a record of Sympetrum sanguineum from
Leigh. Lucas also included a record of Libellula depressa from the Maldon naturalist E. A. Fitch.
One of the founders of the Essex Field Club, and its president for ten consecutive years. Fitch was
particularly interested in the Hymenoptera and other neglected orders of insects. The joints efforts
of these field naturalists added to Doubleday's Epping list records from a range of Essex sites
including Colchester. Wivenhoe, St. Osyth. Clacton. Birch, Maldon. Leigh. Wanstead and
Woodford, but, significantly, added no new species to Doubleday's list. This indicates a pre-
eminence of the dragonfly fauna in the vicinity of Epping vis a vis the rest of the county which
persists to this day.
From 1900: The Focus on Epping
After the publication of Lucas's splendid work, reports of field-observations of dragonflies
became much more frequent, though, as far as Essex is concerned. Epping Forest remained the
locus of attention for several decades. The Doubledays' worthy successors as recorders in the
Forest were F. W. and H. Campion, of Walthamstow. Their yearly reports on the Forest dragonflies
appeared in The Entomologist between 1903 and 1909 (see Table B:2). and there are subsequent
articles under joint authorship and by H. Campion alone on specific aspects of dragonfly natural
history, such as their prey and parasites. The Odonatist R. J. Tillyard in his standard work The
Biology of Dragonflies (1917) acknowledges Herbert Campion's help, and cites several of their
published articles. Though they were not able to confirm the continued existence in the Forest of
many of Doubleday's rarities, the Campions did manage to add two new species to the county list.
The first was their capture of a single male of the species Orthetrum coerulescens near Chingford on
July 22nd, 1900 (Campion and Campion 1906b). It seems unlikely that this represented a breeding
colony, as no others have been seen in the county, before or since.
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