Notes and Observations 14 Part 1

NOTES A N D OBSERVATIONS (Apodemus flavicollis). In September, 1967, my dog caught a young male flavicollis on a stubble field in Stratford St. Andrew about thirty yards out from the boundary hedge. T h e field was being ploughed and the tractor had just gone by: it seems possible that the mouse had been ploughed up in its run. A. sylvaticus has often been recorded away from woodland or hedgerow, indeed it is known to graze down winter wheat like rabbits: I have not hitherto known of A. flavicollis from such a locality.

CRANBROOK, G. Glemham.

YELLOW NECKED MOUSE

L O N G TAILED FIELD MOUSE (A. sylvaticus) IN NEST BOX. On the 14th October, 1967,1 visited Great Finborough Park to prepare for next year's nesting season. When opening box number nine (for cleaning out purposes) I found it had already been taken over by a pair of Long Tailed Field Mice which had carted in no less than 109 conkers, completely Alling the box, the inside measurement of the box being 5" x 4 " x 8 " in depth and 9 ' high on a horse chestnut tree.

R. J. COPPING, Stowmarket.

A PASSAGE OF WEASELS (Mustela nivalis).

Motoring slowly on the main road between Norwich and Ipswich one afternoon in September, I saw what I first took to be a quite large snake move from the verge out into the road for a few yards and then with a quick twist, turn and return to cover. I slowed up and when within thirty feet or so of the spot, the 'snake' appeared again.

It was a number of weasels—perhaps five, six or more—following one another so closely head to tail they looked like a Single creature: their looping gait giving them a snake-like appearance—though I suppose snakes actually loop on a horizontal plane and the weasels on a vertical! In clear view they 'snaked' their way across the road in front of me and disappeared into the grass on the verge opposite. I was so hypnotised by this Performance I failed to remark the exact number of weasels or whether they were all the same size but I do not think they differed greatly one from another and I had no impression of seeing a number of young and their parents, though this seems a natural explanation.

H U G H BARRETT,

Winston.

STOAT (Mustela erminea) CARRYING M O L E (Talpa europaea).

In October, 1967, I saw a stoat, carrying a mole in its mouth, run across a road: it had considerable difficulty in carrying it, straddling the body of its prey with its front legs.

FIDELITY CRANBROOK,

Gt. Glemham.

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Transactions of the Suffolk Naturalists',

Vol. 14, Part 1

NEST BOX BREEDING RESULTS AT GREAT FINBOROUGH.

In the

140 nesting boxes erected for the 1967 breeding season at Great Finborough Park, nine species of birds bred, laying 916 eggs, hatching 664 young and rearing 520 young. My final statistics were made up of the following:— 46 14 2 1 16 6 1 2 31

Species Blue tits Great tits Marsh tits Coaltit Starlings Jackdaws Wren Tawny owls Treesparrows

Eggs laid 394 105 18 10 90 25 1 5 268

Young hatched 337 73 16 10 60 11 — — 157

Young reared 294 36 16 10 49 3 — — 112

Nests were built in twenty-one other boxes but laying did not take place. One pair of Red Squirrels occupied their usual box and one box was stolen.

Düring May a bout of vandalism took place when whole clutches of eggs (as many as ten in a clutch) were stolen from boxes and several lids left off causing the parent birds to forsake and many young nestlings to die, hence the low rearing number. T h e wren built in mid-April, did not lay until 13th June and continued to incubate her single egg for twenty-five days before she finally deserted.

R . J . COPPING, S t o w m a r k e t .

THE AGATE SLUG (Limaxe agates). Our Molluscologists will disapprove of my intrusion into a subject not my own, but one of these beasts intruded yesterday on me, heaving itself on to a plate in my kitchen sink. He, or more probably, 'she' is the right word if this family is bisexual as some authorities consider, she (then) surprised me by the rough ridge all the way down her back. So I looked her up—only Sowerby's Slug and the Agate Slug have this feature—others have it only half way at the tail end. Some say the Agate is merely a sub-species of the Sowerby's, others that it has definite distinguishing features.

I had Sowerby's in my back walls when I came to this house and took some pains to get the horrid yellow creatures to quit.

This amateur made an absurd mistake in taking two openings on either side of the shield or mantel—the vestigial mollusca shell lies beneath this horny plate and is shaped like a finger-nail—I thought these holes were the eyes—the familiar slug eyes on tentacle were drawn in at the time—but learned later that these were respiratory openings.

NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS

73

Then I put the plate and slug out in the garden. Later a mother slug had been joined by two babies with protruding eyes, as hers then were.

This creature is much bigger and tougher-skinned than those jelly blobs onefindson lettuces—the Milky Slug (Limax agrestis)— so called from the colour of its slime.

Now perhaps one of our Molluscologists—wil teil me that this species is common in East Anglia. The books give it only for the South-West and Ireland.

J. c. N. WILLIS. CRITHMUM MARITIMUM. Mrs. Wightman can re-assure Mr. Simpson that the entire colony of this plant has not been destroyed as he feared at Shingle Street (Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 13, 358). She has been along there recently and found the three small patches of it that she had known for many years still there.

In confirmation of this she sent a small piece—flower and leaves.

J. C. N. WILLIS. IDENTIFICATION OF PLANTS. Will members of the Society please note that in future all enquiries regarding British or European plants should be addressed to:— The Department of Botany, British Museum of Natural History, Cromwell Road, London, S.W.7.

A MASS OF FUNGI. Towards the end of September I discovered on a barley stubble-field at Risby, an enormous number of specimens of the fungus Coprinus comatus. They were in six great patches spread over an area of about four acres. I began trying to count the individual fungi, but gave it up on reachingfivethousand.

There could well have been double that number.

W. H. PAYN, Härtest.

XYLARIA POLYMORPHA. I have also found a clump of the curious black fungus Xylaria polymorpha growing on a piece of dead wood at Härtest. F. W. Simpson who kindly confirmed my identification, states that it is not a very common species in Suffolk.

W. H. PAYN, Härtest.