THE FERJ3 NATURAE OF THE LONDON PARKS. 
165 
diverting pages of Evelyn and Pepys. The park at this time, 
says Evelyn, was 66 stored with numerous flocks of several sorts of 
ordinary and extraordinary wild-fowl, breeding about the decoy, 
which, for being so near a city, and among such a concourse of 
soldiers and people, is a singular and diverting thing.” * 
In William the Third’s time a proclamation was issued for the 
preservation of game “ within ten miles of the Court of White- 
hall and the precincts thereof.” This proclamation, which was 
published in the “London Gazette,” in October 1690, forbade 
the keeping of “ a fowling-piece, gun, setting dog, net, trammel, 
or other unlawful engine,” by any person “ other than such as 
shall be by law qualified ; ” and such as gave information con- 
cerning offenders to John Webbe, living in St. James’s Park, 
were to be rewarded. 
Grosley, in his “ Tour to London,” 1772, especially notices the 
deer in St. James’s Park, and remarks that u in that part 
nearest Westminster nature appears in all its rustic simplicity 
— a meadow regularly intersected and watered by canals, and 
with willows and poplars without any regard to order.” 
Deer were to be seen in Kensington Gardens for some time 
after the commencement of the present century, and remained in 
Hyde Park until the year of the Queen’s coronation when, a great 
fair being held there for some days, they were removed to Bushey, 
and never replaced. 
The last wolf is thought to have been killed in England 
during the reign of Henry the Seventh, at which period this 
animal had become so extremely scarce as to be confined to a few 
of the wilder and more remote districts in the North of England.f 
Its extinction in the neighbourhood of London dates some 
centuries earlier, and we are happily unable to include it in our 
present list. But there is a story on record of a wolf at large in 
St. James’s Park, which may be appropriately quoted here. 
In 1739, near the Vineyard, in St. James’s Park, lived a gentle- 
man who kept a wolf. One night in January in that year the 
animal broke loose and found its way into the park. The first 
human being he saw, early in the morning, was a milkman, 
at whom he flew furiously. The man set down his pails and 
took to his heels ; and as the milk was apparently more tempting 
to the wolf than the milkman, he began at once to drink it, 
during which time the man escaped. The animal having thus 
refreshed himself, and espying a calf at a little distance, imme- 
diately killed and partly devoured it ; but fortunately while thus 
engaged he was found by his keeper and recaptured before he could 
do any further mischief.^ 
* Evelyn’s Diary, February 9, 1664-5. 
t See “ Pop. Sci. Review,” 1878, p. 150. 
X Larwood, “ London Parks,” vol. ii. pp. 175-6. 
