70 THE MAMMALS, REPTILES, AND FISHES OF ESSEX. 



Order RUMINANTIA. 



Family CERVID^. 

 Genus CERVUS, Linn. 



Cervus elaphas, Linn. RED DEER or STAG. 



About 1827, according to Mr. J. E. Harting (Trans. Essex 

 Field Club, vol. i., p. 79) and Mr. E. N. Biaxton (Epping Forest, 

 1897, P- 62), the last Red Deer were removed from Epping 

 Forest to Windsor. Until that date, this species had con- 

 tinuously from the earliest times been a resident, in a wild 

 condition, in this county, as the various mentions of Red 

 Deer in the Forest Records attest. Under the Forest law of 

 Canute, deer and boars are among the principal beasts for 

 the killing of which recompense must be made. 



From the time of Edward the Confessor, the Kings have 

 hunted in Epping Forest. It is said (Nott's ed. of Surrey's 

 Works, i., xxxiv.) that Henry VIII. was actually enjoying the 

 sports of the Forest when his Queen Ann Boleyn was executed. 

 A pre-arranged signal, the report of a distant gun, informed 

 him of her death. Queen Elizabeth was very fond of shooting 

 a buck with the cross-bow, and, in May, 1578, she was enter- 

 tained for several days by the Earl of Leicester at Wanstead 

 House. In Queen Elizabeth's Lodge, at Chingford, we have 

 a record of her visits to the Forest. 



After the Restoration, ;i,ooo was expended in restocking 

 the Forest with Deer (CaL State Pap. Dom. Chas. //.), which 

 during the Commonwealth were evidently neglected. 



Mr. Harting says (Essex Naturalist, vol. i., p. 54), that, 

 early in last century, the Deer of Epping Forest decreased 

 largely in numbers, owing partly to the demands of claims 

 made for " fee deer," partly (and this he quotes from Gilbert 

 White's letter to Pennant, Selborne, ed. 1875, pp. 22-23), to 

 the depredations of the gang known as " Waltham 



