otters were sufficiently scarce to be reported individually. One correspondent
made the following bizarre observation:
This spring, my cousin .. bolted a fine dog into a sack from [the
Stour]...It was kept in a tank ... for a week, and then hunted at
Steeple Bumpstead, but did not give much sport... I know of one
gentleman who has already shot three otters this year from the
Stour, at Sudbury. With a little protection and a little less ruthless
persecution, we might still hope to emulate the deeds of 1796 in
Essex, when nine otters were hunted and killed in one day. With
'protectors' like that, who needs enemies?
similarly' for the badger: Mr Laver rightly speaks of the badger as well nigh
extinct in this country, and I have been disappointed this year in obtaining a
young Essex specimen, as I had hoped
the discovery of free-living green tree frogs in Epping Forest
an August field meeting at Epping turned to fire-fighting as members tackled
a major forest fire
a nest in Hazeleigh Hall Wood contained the eggs of grey and red-legged
partridges and pheasant
a substantial invasion of convolvulus hawk-moths, including fifty taken in a
Chingford garden.
My final thoughts are in relation to the Presidential Address by T V Holmes: The past
and future of the Essex Field Club. His purpose was to review the first seven years of
the club's existence - its successes and failures, and its prospects for building a secure,
long-term future. The noted successes are largely the learned papers, delivered at
meetings and published by the club, covering a diversity of topics: capturing for
posterity the fruits of inquiry. And also the successes of their early forays into
conservation:
... we may also look back with satisfaction on the part played by our Field
Club in preventing the injury that would have been wrought to Epping Forest
by a certain railway of which we now happily hear no more.
The problems he highlighted will be familiar to anyone involved in a club such as
ours - the non-payment of subscriptions; the burden of work on the shoulders of a
small number of volunteers; the need to ensure speedy and regular publication of
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 33, September 2000
6