CLASS MAMMALIA. 55 



Club's Museum at Chingford. It was reputed to have been 

 imported with young fox cubs. A notice of it, by the late 

 Mr. Joseph Clarke, F.S.A., is printed in Journ. Proc. Essex 

 Field Club (vol. iv., p. ccviii). A sketch of this specimen, by 

 Mr. H. A. Cole, is here produced. Another notice of the 

 supposed occurrence of this animal in Epping Forest appeared 

 in Land and Water (July igth, 1884, p. 64). It transpired 

 afterwards that the experts had made a mistake ; for further 

 examination of evidence proved that the so-called Wolf was, 

 in reality, a North African Jackal (Journ. of Proc. Essex 

 Field Club, vol. iv., p. cciv.). Whatever the animal may 

 have been, it cannot be claimed as a legitimate member 

 of our Fauna; but, as there are very probably other indi- 

 viduals of the same species in existence in the Forest, it can 

 hardly be passed over without mention.] 



Sub-Order CARNIVORA PINNIPEDIA. 



Family PHOCID^E. 



Genus, PHOCA, Linn. 



Phoca vitulina, Linn. COMMON SEAL. 



This Seal occurs sparingly on all parts of the Essex coast, 

 but it is not seen every year. Specimens have been killed in 

 the Stour, the Blackwater, in the mouth of the Thames, 

 and in other places. Properly speaking, all the Seals taken 

 on our shores can only be considered as stragglers. 



Two were observed in the Stour, between Harwich and 

 Manningtree, in 1854 (Field, March nth, p. 220). The young 

 one was shot by a Stour puntsman near Mistley ; but the 

 older Seal, after being wounded by Mr. F. G. Folkard, was 

 abandoned, and probably drifted on shore. 



Mr. E. A. Fitch records (Essex Nat., vol. ii., p. 3) the capture 

 of two in the Blackwater and also of one in the Roach river. 

 The former were shot by a Maldon fisherman on January ipth, 

 1 88 1, the day following the remarkable snow-storm, when, as 

 Mr. Fitch points out, the condition of the river Blackwater, 

 choked with snow and ice, strangely resembled the native 



