ITS ANIMALS
57
animals and birds I have limited my observations
to those characteristics which may be noted by
any observant eye. I have not included in the
list the prairie wolf, of which there used to be a
specimen at the Zoological, which was alleged to
have been caught in Epping Forest. According
to the story which appeared in Land and Water in
the summer of 1884, this animal was purchased
as a cub by a gentleman living at Leytonstone,
from a hay carter, who said that he had caught it
ROE-DEER. RED-DEER. FALLOW-DEER.
with two others in the Forest, and described them
as fox cubs. When the cub grew up he turned
out to be an undoubted coyote or prairie wolf. It
was conjectured that their parents must have been
turned out for fox cubs, and although the gentle-
man to whom their introduction was attributed
has assured me that what he enlarged were un-
doubtedly Spanish foxes, it is just possible that
some one else may have turned out coyotes, and
that they lived and bred unsuspectedly for some
years in the Forest. The story is, however, not
sufficiently confirmed for me to include wolves
among the Forest animals.
The Fallow-Deer are the most conspicuous and distinctive
of the wild animals inhabiting the Forest. They have