suggests that these species were not common - or at least were rather localised - in the Forest at that
time. A. mixta and S. sanguineum are other species apparently recorded rather irregularly. The
Campions' list is also notable for the inclusion of records of two rare migratory dragonflies -
Sympetrum flaveolum (also recorded earlier by Henry Doubleday) and Sympetrum vulgatum (a new-
county record).
Little information on the dragonfly fauna of Essex outside Epping Forest during the early years
of this century survives. I have located specimens of two species. Sympetrum sanguineum and Lestes
sponsa, from Frinton and Walton-on-the-Naze, respectively, which were collected in 1912 by J. W.
Yerbury. These are in the Hope Department Collections in Oxford. Also from this period, the
Campions' dragonfly notes (Campion and Campion. 1913) for the 1912 season mentioned a report
from A. Luvoni of an immature male of S. sanguineum at Westcliff on July 14th of that year.
The inter-war years, and especially the period following the publication of Cynthia Longfield's
superb Dragonflies of the British Isles in the 'Wayside and Woodland' series (Longfield. 1937).
marked a period of much more intensive study of the Essex dragonfly fauna, with a circle of first
rate field naturalists exchanging information and encouragement, and publishing their findings in
both national and local journals. The Essex Naturalist carried many of these reports, as did the
London Naturalist, the journal of the London Natural History Society, from the early 1920s
onwards. This circle of naturalists included Cyril O. Hammond and Cynthia Longfield, two of this
century's great experts on the dragonflies, together with Edgar E. Syms. Hugh Main. Bernard T.
Ward. Edward B. Pinniger. R. M. Payne. L. Parmenter. K. M. Guichard and others. Though my
main concern is with Odonata recording, the contribution made by these naturalists to our
knowledge of the ecology, botany. Orthoptera. Neuroptera, Diptera, Ornithology and other aspects
of our county's natural history is immense. Their work deserves to be much more fully recognised
in print.
Cyril O. Hammond was studying the dragonflies of Epping Forest from as early as 1923. and his
extant diaries contain notes on his observations through to the mid 1940s. Hammond's notes
suggest that the dragonfly fauna of the Forest was little changed since the Campions' studies and.
like them, he recorded twenty species there. C. splendens reappears on the list, whereas A. mixta.
recorded only sporadically by earlier observers, does not appear to have been recorded in the forest
by Hammond until 1937. Sympetrum flaveolum appeared in the Forest in considerable numbers in
July and August 1926 (two of Hammond's specimens, collected in that year, are in the W. J. Lucas
collection, at the Hope Department, Oxford (see also Lucas 1927a and 1927b)). Both C. aenea and
B. pratense were recorded regularly through the 1920s whilst C. aenea appears as recently as 1945.
The other Epping Forest rarity. Sympetrum danae, was not found by Hammond until 1926. when, he
commented, it 'never became common'. Orthetrum cancellatum was first recorded for the Forest in
1937. in which year also Sympetrum danae was reported to be common.
Edgar E. Syms (1881 to 1966). who published a further list for Epping Forest in 1929. lived for
many years at Wanstead. He was a handicrafts teacher in East London, and. according to F. D.
Buck (1966). in his younger days he was 'an ardent trade unionist, a soap-box orator and something
of a firebrand". Perhaps his political background explains Syms' extraordinarily active role in the
Essex Field Club, the London Natural History Society and the South London Entomological and
Natural History Society, not to mention his fellowship of the Royal Entomological Society, the
Zoological Society of London and the Amateur Entomologists' Society.
Syms joined the Essex Field Club in 1913. and was its president from 1956 to 1959. He was
curator of the Passmore Edwards Museum for several years, and was elected an Honorary Member
of the Club in 1963, some three years before his death in 1966. Between 1929 and 1960, the pages of
the Essex Naturalist are studded with references to exhibits and talks presented to Field Club
meetings on a wide range of entomological topics: Diptera, the breeding of crickets, earwigs.
Stoneflies, beetles, solitary bees, potter wasps, moths and. of course, dragonflies. Syms was also a
keen photographer, and there are several references to the use of his 'lantern photographs' at Field
Club meetings.
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