Observations 1 Part 3

224

OBSERVATIONS.

OBSERVATIONS. To the man who will not look Nature presents a sealed book : Nature's secrets, who would read, Observation keen will need.—E.A.E. LATE ASH-TREES.—-Through fifty miles of Suffolk from Gorleston to Bawdsey on 2 May 1930, Members disagreed respecting the comparative forwardness of the Oaks (Quercus Robur, Linn.) and Ashs (Fraxinus exeelsior, Linn.) : both were then distinctly backward in emitting foliage. No such question arose this year, for the former was in strong leaf by the end of April and Ashs barely budded before mid-May ; even at that time maturity was very slowly attained and, in the case of older trees, not completed tili 13 June, a phenomenally late date.

Ladies Tresses (Spiranthes autumnalis, Rieh., not recorded from Lothingland by Hind) was found growing in a marshy, not chalky, meadow at Hopton by John L. Moore and on Beiton Heath by Mr. Rumbelow, who also noted Moonwort (Botrychium lunaria, Sw.) at the latter locality in September.

Mrs. Hudson found the Orchid, Ophrys museifera, Huds., in woods at Sparsholt in Hants on 8 June ; it, with its packing of Liverwort, Plagischila asplenioides, Linn., and Moss, Thuidium tamariscinum, BS., has been determined by Mr. Mayfield.

The potash of commerce is calcined beech-wood.

ACTINOZOA.—Mr. Edward A. Ellis is so good as to inform us that four species of Sea-anemones occur on the breakwater beside Gorleston pier. Among these are Actinia mesembryanthemum, Gos. (dredged by Major Cooper off Southwold in 1929), and Anthea plumosa, Müll., to the base of which were attached the Sea-spider (Pycnogonum littorale, Ström.), found also by us at Kessingland in May 1931. Mr. Ellis adds that the Gammarid Crustacean, Podocerus falcatus, Mont. (Bates & Ww. i, 445) builds its nests on tubes of the interesting zoophyte, Tub'ularia indivisa, Linn., at Gorleston.

ECHINODERMATA.—That Echinocardium cordatum, Penn., is a good deal commoner than our record (supra p. 70) would suggest seems proved by the profusion in which this Sea-urchin was washed ashore at Holkham Bay in North Norfolk at the end of April 1931.

The little shell, Montacuta substriata, Mont., is said to be commensal among its anal spines, though William Clark's 1855 ' Marine Mollusca ' restricts this attachment at page 95 to the allied urchin, Spatangus purpureus,

OBSERVATIONS.

225

MOLLUSCA.—-In Britain are approximately 710 species of Mollusca, including such sbell-less animals as Nudibranches and slugs, divided thus:—Pelecypoda seu Bivalves 183; Scaphopoda 6 ; Gastropoda seu Univalves (including the Amphineura) 509 ; and Cephalopoda seu Cuttle-fishes 12.

Of these, only 141 may be regarded as exmarine. And, of the whole 710, no more than 205 are recorded from Suffolk, on account of our lack of sea-rocks—CM., 4 vi 1931.

ARACHNIDA.—Each year produces a single species of Falsescorpion that is new to Suffolk (cf. supra, 71 and 140). This year several Chelifer Latreillei, Leach, were discovered in sand at the roots of marram grass on the denes close to the sea at Thorpe-by-Aldeburgh on 22 July, along with the bug, Berytus tipularius, Linn., and such coast-beetles as Calathus mollis Marsham, Dromins melanocephalus Dej., Cercyon littoralis Gyll., Bryaxis fossulata Reich., Saprinus rugifrons Payk. and Apion unicolor, Kirby. All Pickard-Cambridge's localities for this Arachnid (British Chernetidea, p. 223), except one at Glanvilles Wootton in Dorset, are upon the coast, though he indicates no such attachment to a maritime habitat as is obvious in the present instance.

HYDRACHNIDVE.—A female Water-scorpion (Nepa cinerea, Linn.) was found on 4 May last lying dead in a damp spot of the Latimer marshes at Kessingland.

Upon its underside from rostrum to anus were scattered fully a score of bright scarlet Hydrachnids. Had the latter brought their great host to its death ? We cannot recall ever having discovered a dead Nepa before. All ectoparasites clinging to specimens of the allied " Water-boatmen " genera Notonecta and Corixa are said to be larvae of the acarine Water Mites constituting the family Hydrachnidse (Trans. Norf. Nat. Soc. viii, p. 85) ; others attack fresh-water Musseis (J/wi'o-shells, in whose mantlecavity Atax Bonzi is said to be common by Shipley, who names Nepa as a host) and small fishes. This year we have noted these Mites on many insects in Suffolk, Mr. Moore found them on Lyccena agestis in Glos, and Mr. Doughty has sent them us upon Hesperia Actceon from Dorset. How they come at such active butterflies appears hitherto unexplained.

SPIDER versus HONEY B E E . — - " In Framlingham on 2 4 May 1931, I witnessed a fight between a Hive Bee (Apis mellifica, L.) which became entangled in a web and the owner of the latter, which I cannot name ; but it resembled, in its size and geometrical arrangement, that of the large Garden Spider (.Epeira diademata, Clk.) : its stout body is of a uniform dark brown, as are also its legs. The attack began by the Spider rushing from its den to within half an inch of the Bee, which made great efforts to get away and succeeded in breaking some

226

QBSERVATIONS.

of the web's meshes. Then the former got within foils-length, so to speak, of the Bee and fully extended its legs, placing two of them a short distance alongside and parallel with the Bee's body. The objects of this manoeuvre were apparent: by being held thus the Bee, whose sting was very busy, was restricted to using that weapon only in a direction parallel with the Spider's legs, and thus could neither pierce the legs in order to inject poison, nor get within striking distance ofthe soft and vulnerable body : thence this hold of the Spider served a two-fold purpose. Next the Spider did a very rapid clinch : flexing its legs, getting its poison-fangs to work upon the Bee's body, and extending its own legs again, all in one continuous movement.

Then it retired an inch, while the Bee made frantic efforts to escape and, by breaking more of the web, attained within an inch of its circumference. Gradually these efforts seemed to become somewhat feebler, whereupon the Spider got in another clinch and again withdrew, turning its back upon the Bee. Next the spinnerets got to work and, after the latter had been caught in a cloud of webtissue, the Spider faced round and proceeded to swathe him in threads, revolving the whole on its long axis, and finally dragging the swathed carcase into the lair."—C. H. S. VINTER. [A male of the locally rare heteromerous Beetle, Prionychus (.Eryx) ater, Fab.—of which one was sitting on a beech-trunk in a meadow at Martlesham rectory in early August 1904 (Doughty) and another found dead at Parham Wood on 15th August 1931 (Morley)—was discovered by us on 23 July last to be attached by only a dozen strands to a spider's web in Freston Tower ; but so tenacious were this dozen that their disentanglement occupied fully an hour ! What acid will dissolve spider's web, without injuring insect's integument ?—Ed.] CRUSTACEA : New Species to Suffolk.—Though common throughout Europe, the small milk-white Platyarthrus Hoffmannseggi, Brandt (Bull. Soc. Nat. Moscow vi, 1833, p. 171), is not among the six Woodlice that are recorded from our county atpage6, supra. However,wewere nearly sure we had often seen, without taking, it ; and this was confirmed by the species' occurrence to us in some numbers beneath a log in Tuddenham Fen on 14 May 1930. As is usually the case, it was then associating with the ant Myrmica ruginodis, Nyl. (too vaguely termed M. rubra by Webb & Sillem in Essex Nat. xiv, 1905, p. 92 : page 30 of 1906 reprint) ; but it is shown to be inquiline in the nests of most of our species by Donisthorpe (British Ants 1915, passim).

" Among the Crustacea that I have found upon the breakwater beside Gorleston pier are the crabs, Corystes Cassivelaunus, Penn., Pilumnus hirtellus, L., and Portumnus variegatus,

QBSERVATIONS.

227

Leach. Two Isopods, the Gribble (Limnoria lignorum, Rath.) in its woodwork under water, and the sea Woodlouse (Ligia oceanica, L.) abundant on the pier, also occur, with a couple of Idotea, various Copepods and skeleton-shrimps."—EDWARD A. E m s , in lit. 27 Aug. 1931.

MYRIAPODA.—We are glad to announce that an authority, the Revd. S. Graham Brade-Birks, D.Sc., has at length come forward to determine the Centipeds and Millepeds of Suffolk.

The Hon. See. will be pleased to forward to him all speeimens sent in for identification. These should be collected in as many divergent localities as is convenient, in order to ascertain the extent of their local distribution.—Of the 34 British species, those of critical genera, like Lithobius, Geophilus and Julus, can be named only by such an expert, since no British monograph exists. Of the others, we have found the oniseiform Glomeris marginata, Vill., about Ipswich occasionally since 1894 ; and the small Polyxenus lagurus, Linn., was gaily rambling across a vertical window-pane of Monks' Soham House on 26 August 1931, but dropped among herbage below it while being examined with a lens : however, we had plainly seen the prominent lateral and large white caudal tufts of bristles, the antennae, ten segments and twenty-six legs, so identity is proved: doubtless it is common and mistaken for a Beetle-larva, on account of its strong resemblance to those of Dermestid Clavicornia.

ENTOMOLOGY.—The genus and several species of Oxyura new to Science (i.e. Carabiphagus; Paramesius spinulosus ; Labolips Annommati; Loxotropa Morleii, Chitty MS.; and Dicopus cervus), brought forward in our Trans, i, pp. 40-60, have been described by Mr. Morley at Entomologist lxiv, 1931, pp. 14 et seqq.

W O O D - W A S P ' S PARASITE (Ibalia cultellator, Latr.).—" As you say that no Ibalia have been captured in Suffolk since about 1830, when Curtis took the first British speeimen at Bungay (Entomologist 1931, p. 150), it is worth putting upon record that one flew on to me in Cläre a year or two ago, as I was cycling through that town. Later I have reeeived others, alive and dead, from Dorset where it attacks the most usual blue Woodwasp (Sirex noctilio, Fab.) : these are now in the collection of Mr. L. A. Box, F.E.S."—B. S. HARWOOD.

DADDY-LONG-LEGS.—These flies, constituting the families Tipulidae and Limnobiidae, are most interesting but much neglected : the commonest species (Tipula oleracea, L.) was a nuisance at sugar and light last September. In damp woods during that month many kinds were unusually abundant, especially where decaying timber in which their larvae feed was

228

OBSERVATIONS.

lying about. The most prolific Suffolk one was doubtless in Blythburgh, where the fire noticed at page 67 above extended to only one portion ; that portion is strewn with rotting trunks of birch and alder, among which Symplecta similis, Mg., Ephelia apicata, Lw. (new to Suffolk), etc., were Aying commonly. Coarse grass more than two feet bigh has sprang up in the area tbus cleared, and over it males of the golden Limnobia bifasciata, Sehr., careered at a great pace.

Limnophila subtineta, Zett., flew eight feet high and was there sitting on birch trunks ; and the first male of the splendid Pcsdisca nvosa, L., not seen here since 1914, was passing between bushes not far from the ground on 16 September.

W E E V I L ' S F O O D - P L A N T . — C l o s e beside the main road and nearly under a spruce-fir hedge, at Santon Downham on 18 May last, were great numbers of the local Weevil, Phyllobius viridicollis, Fab., which was not recorded from our County tili 1915 (Coleop. Suff., ist Suppl. 9), though Elliott first swept the species under spruce firs at Brandon on 10 June 1899.

Elsewhere in Suffolk it has since occurred only at Tuddenham (Tomlin) and Lakenheatb, both also in tbe Breck District: we have heard of it from neither Norfolk nor Essex. Those in question were sitting in the middle of balf-expanded leaves in the beads of nettles (Urtica dioica, L.) whence they dropped at once upon being touched, though not otherwise nervous. All round them in the upper side of the leaves was a transparent area, which they had obviously devoured. With them occurred only the common beetles Cceliodes 4-maculatus, L. and Brachypterus urticce, Fab., with the bug Anthocoris sylvestris, L. Fowler's ' Coleoptera ' assigns no food-plant to this weevil.

A N T - L I O N IN S U F F O L K . — " A fine male Myrmeleon formicarius, Linn., was found in Gorleston on 5 September 1931. I was then unsuccessfully working the south face of a favourite ränge of palings for Micro-Lepidoptera ; but the only insect found was one that I took for some species of Dragon-fly, though it Struck me as an uncommon one, because it totally lacked the bright colours usual in those insects. Therefore I sent it to our Hon. Secretary, who informs me of its identity. The insect was clinging to the paling at about thirty inches from the ground, in an apparently torpid condition. The place where it occurred is a good residential district at the south extremity of Gorleston, about a half-mile from the sea and without any shops in its vicinity, to which the Ant-lion could have been conveyed in foreign produce."—C. G. DOUGHTY. [This is a most remarkable capture : we are not aware that the species, a native of the Mediterranean Region, has ever been even imported into Britain before. Stephens' 1829 British Catalogue includes it, in a footnote at p. 310, as doubtfully

OBSERVATION S.

229

indigenous, with a reference to Leach's article ix in the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia of 1810 : probably in error. Indeed, it is later repudiated by Stephens himself (Illustrations Brit. Ent. Mand. vi, 98) ; and we have to search yet earlier for any record.

This is at length found in 1781, in ' The Genera Insectorum of Linnaeus exemplified by Various Specimens of English Insects, drawn from Nature,' by J. Barbut ; London, 4to. And Dr. Hagen anticipated it " as almost certain that at least two species of Myrmeleon will be found in Britain, probably more.

The perfect insects, being nocturnal and bad fliers, are easily overlooked ; the larvae are always very local, and easily escape discovery : sandy places are their favourite resort " (Entom.

Ann. 1858, p. 19 ; forhabitscf. Reaumur 1734, vi, 333 : Bonnet, ii, 380 ; Westw. Mag. Nat. Hist. 1838 ; Romand, Ann. Soc. Ent. Fr. 1850 ; McLachlan, EMM. 1865, p. 73 & 1883, p. 104).

Although Westwood and McLachlan consider that " we have no native member of the handsome Myrmeleonidce " in Britain (Trans. Ent. Soc. 1868, p. 145), the recognition of the present specimen as British-bred would remove it into a quite different category from a stray visitant, and such a possibility must not be ignored. All Gorleston, including the spot of capture at a few hundred yards south-west of the ry Station, stands upon glacial sand, not dissimilar from that of Fontainebleu Forest where M. formicarins abounds ; the district has been almost unworked by Neuropterists since the Pagets' time, a Century ago ; and both this species and M. formicalynx, Burm., occur throughout France and Belgium, a mere seventy miles further south-east. It is a very populär insect abroad on account of its larva's peculiar pit-fall, and often mentioned in English works (Kirby-Spence, 7 ed. 244 ; Westw. Introd. ii, 41 ; Budgeon, iii, 245 ; Dallas, 206 ; Wood's Dwellings, 99 ; Badenoch 1893, 66 ; and it is passably figured in Shipley's 1893 Invertebrate Zoology, 347). A spirited picture of the carnivorous larva is given in Princess Mary's circa 1915 ' Gift Book.'—ED.] LOCUSTS.—Another stränge visitant to the same district is the Locust (Acridium Danica), but not of the migratory kind.

A female, seventy mm. in length (figured), was captured on Yarmouth north quay in Norfolk at the end of August and seen alive by us on 19 September. A second specimen was taken at Bradwell in Suffolk on 1 October, and was reported by Mr. P. E. Rumbelow to be still active twelve days later. Scattered notices in the Local Press this autumn illustrate a small influx of this Continental Locust upon the shores of Suffolk, Norfolk and Yorkshire, whence in all some dozen examples are recorded.

Vanessa cardui IN SPRING.—In view of the great uncertainty of hibernated specimens' appearance [such were noted by us in Surrey every day from 17 to 29 June 1889, and

230

OBSERVATIONS.

none at the same place in 1890.—ED.], it is worth stating that on 24 May last I saw one quite late in the day, Aying about my Framlingham garden. Ultimately it settled on the west wall of the house, where there was the last glimpse of sun ; and here it spent the night, under the shelter of a climbing rose. Three or four individuals were seen, Aying Ave days later, in Bentley Woods (C. H. S. VINTER).—Some Ave-and-twenty were observed at Beiton (MOORE), Gorleston and Hopton, before the end of the month (DOUGHTY) ; and in early June, when it was common on the Norfolk coast at Caister, it appeared at both Ken ton ( R . A . M O R L E Y ) and Monks Soham (Miss WATSON). In considerable numbers at WaldringAeld at the end of May (WALLER). Again in Gorleston gardens during August and September (DOUGHTY).

The Revd. H. A. Harris of Thorndon Rectory near Eye writes on 31 August 1931 to say that upon that day he saw, for quite ten minutes and easily could have taken with a net, a Camberweü Beauty [Vanessa Antiopa, Linn.] Aying round bramble Aowers at Hoxne.

After seeing none for fully Afteen years, W. GiAord Nash of Clavering House in Bedford took a single Vanessa polychloros, L., Aying in a lane at Stutton in 1929 ; and at the same place, in the course of a half-hour, nine more specimens on 27 July 1930, with three on the next and two on the following days.

As is usual they, with Hornets (Vespa crabro, L.) and Wasps (V. vulgaris, L.), were attracted to the exuding sap of an oaktrunk (Entom. lxiv, p. 68).—Two worn specimens occurred in my garden at Gorleston during August 1 9 2 7 . — J . L . MOORE. Deilephila lineata, Fab., IN 1931.—On 28 May last a specimen of the Striped Hawk (cf. supra, p. 31) was found, by my maid, dead in my garden at Gorleston. That day we had a most violent thunder-storm between 1 and 2 p.m., with torrential rain which continued for the most part of the afternoon. And about 6 p.m. the moth, a male, was found lying upon its back on a border of pinks, stiff but quite dry and a perfect cabinet specimen.—C. G. DOUGHTY. At dusk on 3 June I saw a Hawkmoth, that I consider in all probability to have been this species, since it strongly resembled a peculiarly pale Chcerocampa elpenor, hovering at Stock-Aowers in my WaldringAeld garden. Before a net was available, it had disappeared.— A. P. W A L L E R . [The phenomenal and exact month's inAux of this handsome insect arrived via our East Coast.

It Arst appeared on 19 May at Cambridge and 20th in Essex ; thence it splayed westward to Herts, Oxford, Warwick and Pembroke, northward to Derby and Lancs., and southward to Kent, Sussex, Hants, I. Wight, Wilts, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall (our

OBSERVATIONS.

231

Member, Mr. Riley, in Entom. 1931, p. 163), with a final example on 20 June in Dorset (I.e. p. 182). One wonders more were not noted in Suffolk.—ED.] T H E P I N E HAWK.—Rumour had it that Episcopus again persisted in annexing Pinastri during late July, and not singly either, " somewhere in " Suffolk. I came across a Watcher of the Plains, whose eagle eye had marked down the episcopal gaiters, and hence knew myself to be upon the true prelatical track at last. But the locality seems found only to be soon lost, for already woodmen were felling the extraneous ürs [Pinns Austriaca, L.), wherewith we may suppose the Hawk to have been introduced, since they are all about fifty years or so of age. On them, these men said, the Hawk mainly occurs, and one had captured two speeimens in his hands and passed them on to a stränge gentleman (cf. Entom. 1931, p. 237) ; another local cottager considered them to have been commonest on the old Scots firs (P. sylvestris, L.) of a wood that was totally swept away during 1914-8 ; the Bishop's were upon the former.

Every fir-trunk within a mile of the classic spot was searched by three Members on 4 August; and about 2 p.m. I was delighted to discover a large male of 75 mm. in expanse, sitting at three feet from the ground, with wings a little spread, on the N.E. windward side of the smallest Scots fir of its cordon of old trees, all now left of a pre-war wood. The larvae are not to be fed upon Austrian Pine, though imagines often sit on its trunk : one of our Members this year had several larvae and fed them with this tree, but they gradually died and not tili only a half-dozen remained did he find the mistake ; Scots fir is the natural food, but both Cedrus deodara and C. Lebani are palatable. So local is this Hawk in Britain that every speeimen observed should certainly be recorded in our Transactions.—R. A. MORLEY. Sitting within five feet of the ground on pine trees near Aldeburgh, one male and three females of Hyloicus pinastri, of which one pair was in cop., were captured on 27 July 1930

by W. Gifford Nash of Clavering House in Bedford, whose sister, Mrs. Fison, the next day took—presumably also there—• one newly-emerged female about 3.30 p.m. (Entom. lxiv, p. 68).

Sphinx convolvuli, Linn.—A Convolvulus Hawk was knocked down with a walking-stick by Dr. Everett at Hadleigh, under the impression that it was a bat, in 1911, I think. He gave it to me and, in spite of its method of capture, it was a perfect speeimen (DR. CLOUSTON, in lit. Jan. 1931). A speeimen, quite recently taken there, was given to me in Southwold during 1907

(JOHN L .

MOORE).

Macroglossa fueiformis, Linn., IN NORTH SUFFOLK.—Since the issue of Bloomfield's 1890 " Lepidoptera of Suffolk,"

2 3 2

OBSERVATIONS.

recording the capture of this hawk-moth in only six localities of which the northernmost is Dunwich, it has been taken at Assington rarely (Ransom) ; Tuddenham S t Mary W on honeysuckle (Norgate) ; Hollesley once, on 27 May ! 9 ? 2 (Doughty ; and mtermittently in Bentley Woods ( H o c k i n / bfthe'ISw V

a

^

itS

l0Cal fl

^

is

--hextended

£ N o S f ? / M R - M o ot ar ke 6- n h V e r i n r o u n d b W o m f t h ^ T ° & its favourite blossoms, the Bügle (Ajuga reptans, L.), in Fakenham Wood d 9 s f - e w \ J U n e n l 8 S5 e7 ( Wt h.e Hf i- r sTt i l l e t t - Ent. Week. Int Lt L i 1 8 7 4 S?u p p nL ; Kb u+t t h eNorfolk List (Trans. Norf. s ec > A^ J' n ' P ies hgures in none of Addenda (I.e. 1884, 1889, 1899, and 1914).

Dianthcecia irregularis, Hufn.—That there is no lack of enthusiasm m respect to this Noctua-moth of the Breck is amply demonstrated by the fact that last summer two of our Members came upon a couple of vandals, who were not o X collectmg m arms-full all the Süene otites plants w h i l e i n blossem on Tuddenham Heath but also had stacks o 7 i t in a great jar beside their motor-car (B. HARWOOD, in lit 13 Feb ) Larva. 0 f Irregularis " were advertised for exchange in ' T h e Entomologist' soon afterwards by C. Mellows of the School House Bishops Stortford College : the two incidents are not suggested to be associated! Despite all which Harmodia vrregulans was in goodly numbers there again this year i T n Plusia moneta F a b . - T h i s Noctua occurs upon the win R at T S J 1926 L S T q S 0 " , ^ 6 1 1 ' d U r i n g Angust P ia2l and l l 2 2 July 1926 and 1929, always near Delphiniums on which plant I have found the l a r v * to feed here. I took it also on the give the Sv"l92e0C eoSh^n! ^ y e a r s - because I that f the earliest Suffolk Mnnlt rrh ° c a p t u r e . - J . L. MOORE. The species was certainly taken by William H ?898 er T , B a t Ä I h C r e W e first ™ i t e d him on 6 October 1898. There he died dunng May 1917 : cf. our obituary notice of h, s activities m The Entomologist " of that ] Three specimens were captured on Aconite in my garden at Hemmgston on 21 June 1930.—F. T. CRISP

t h a T t W n ^ f 1 1 ^ ^ 1 ^ 1 1 ^ 8 0 frequently been assumed that the sense of moths' light-attraction centres in the a n t e n n * 1 ma e ^ r MPUtÜnf ^ ^ C O r d a d i r e c t contradict'n Monks S n J ^ t T * pronuba flew in to light in the hall of Monks Soham House at dusk on 9 Sept. 1931 It was eV m the u8ual ther"aüW b7tWay ^ ^ ^ n n e r about g ' b u t > u P ° n exammation, I found it possessed no

OBSERVATIONS.

233

more than apically rounded radicules of both antennae, which appeared to have never had any scape, and had certainly not been singed away.—CLAUDE M O R L E Y .

S T I L B I A ANOMALA, Haw.—The above record, of my capture of this Noctua in Suffolk by Colonel Nurse (page 32 supra), is quite correct. I took a single specimen sitting upon the trank of a Scots pine-tree, while I was looking for Sphinx pinastri. The wood [larvae of this rare moth (EMM. xvi, p. 210) feed upon various grasses in the open parts of woods.—ED.] wherein it occurred is just upon the borders of Butley and Sutton parishes, and is locally termed the Triangle. It was afterwards acquired by Government for the purpose of tree-

planting.—RENDLESHAM ; 2 J u n e 1931.

HOME I N T H E W E S T OF Euchceca Blomeri, Curt.—The " elegant Asthena Blomeri " of Stainton was among the objects of our midsummer visit to Gloucestershire, on account of its exclusively western ränge in England. One of our Members had beaten from bushes a couple of odd specimens upon respectively the 16 and 23 June near Painswick. But its local headquarters was not ascertained tili the 24, a dull day after drenching night-rain with some north-east breeze that was not feit among the trees. Upon the western slope of the Longridge Valley north of Stroud, a narrow gulley runs along, clothed with hanging beech-woods a good deal mixed with scrub and bracken, above the central small stream. Adown the gulley I paced, examining tree-trunks, for a füll mile and noting only Minoa euphorbiata, Lathronympha hypericana and Endothenia nigricostana. Then the beech-trunks became sparser with plenty of light between them, and upon each of two that grew only seven paces apart and were between three and four feet in circumference at five feet from the ground I saw sitting a solitary Blomeri, like any common Geometer with flattened, triangular wings, very conspicuously at six feet from the ground. Both were carefully boxed ; and a third, that flew off the second beech-trunk, netted in a couple of minutes.

My apparently sleepy quarry was, however, very wide awake and boxing a delicate matter. Why were they at this spot, and not elsewhere adown the gulley ? I looked around and saw that, some fifty yards away, there grew several tall Wych-Elms (Ulmus montana, With.), the food-plant of this moth. Flying near these was secured another Blomeri, near several Noctuaelarvse. Later in the day yet more occurred, sometimes upon ash near Wych-Elms and all upon isolated trunks about fifteen feet above the level of the stream, on the south-west or sheltered side and five tö six feet from the trees' base. On 10 July I took one female sitting, as South " hardly ever " found this species, actually upon the trunk of a tall Wych-Elm of but

234

OBSERVATIONS.

forty-two inches in girth, Later single specimens were Sheepscomb woods, showing and for long upon the wing

close beside the above stream. noticed in both the Cranham and Blomeri to be of wide distribution in that district.

B E L A T E D R E C O R D S . — " I saw a great number of Clouded Yellows in 1928 and noted in my diary that, on a small patch of lucerne, I could have netted a dozen in a few minutes. I saw none in 1929, and only one last year " ( D R . CLOUSTON, in lit.

Jan. 1931). Single examples only of Colias Edusa, Fab., have been observed during the present year in a Thorndon garden ;

by Mr. W. J. Ogden in Waldringfield on 14 June ; and by me at Felixstow on 15 October and upon Bawdsey cliff on 12 August (A. P. WALLER), at Dullingham in Cambs. ; and a doubtful C. hyale at Thurlow Parva (TREVOR W A L L E R ) . Diphtera Orion, Esp., was taken by me on 31 May 1923, and Euchlcena parallelaria, Schiff., on 2 August 1 9 2 8 , both in Hemingston ( F R E D . T .

CRISP, in lit. March 1 9 3 1 ) .

With the last geometer, Epione vespertaria of Stephens is synonymous; and the species is NEW to the Suffolk List (Trans, supra, p. 32) ; in Norfolk it is " very rare : one specimen taken at Neatishead in 1860 by Mr. Sayer, and one at Cawston by the Rev. T. H. Marsh " (Trans. Norf.

Nat. Soc. 1874, Suppl. p. 16 ; lacking from all later lists).

We are delighted to hear of the recurrence of the beautiful D. Orion in its old wood at Bentley during the past season.

The latest previous capture there upon record was effected by Mr. Platten so long ago as 1899 ; and up to that year it had been taken upon fully a dozen occasions, the earliest of which ls dealer George King's great, and far too comprehensive, haul of no less than a hundred and twenty specimens " at sugar in a wood near Ipswich " during 1853 (Substitute 1857, p. 220).

ICHTHYOLOGY.—•" A small royal Sturgeon [Acipenser sturio, Linn.], weighing about three stone, was included in the catch of the Lowestoft steam-trawler Arthur Gouldby, landed at Lowestoft yesterday. It was bought by Arthur Evans Fisheries " (Local Paper, 3 Sept. 1931). All English-caught sturgeons were appropriated to the Crown's personal use by a a law of Edward II during 1307-27 ; they are termed a ' royal' fish because, as Blackstone says, it was the King's perquisite : " De Sturgeone observatur, quod rex illum habebit integrum ; de Balena vero sufficit, si rex habeat caput et regina caudam " (Commentaries, ed. 1783, i, p. 223), wherewithal to take unto herseif its ' Whale-bone ' presumably, though actually it thus feil to the King's portion ! Exception occurs in London's Lord Mayor, who claims those caught above London Bridge— formerly. This fish is a ground-feeder, snouting in mud for the Molluscs and other marine animals that make it such oily eating. Its life has a long span, and one stocked to a Pomeranian

OBSERVATIONS.

235

lake by Frederick the Great is reputed still vivant; but the Russian rivers are its head-quarters, where ten thousand specimens frequently come into a single fishery in the course of a year.

We are glad to know that the Lark Angling Society stocked a hundred Grayling (Thymallus vulgaris, Nil.) to the River Lark last March. " It is quite a new fish hereabouts," one of the members teils us ; indeed, it does not appear to have existed in Suffolk before. We trust the colony may thrive, along with the hundred and twenty specimens, fully eleven inches long, put in on 14 October from the Berks river Kennett.

ORNITHOLOGY (supra p. 1 4 6 ) . — B o t h Mr. Elliott and Mr. J . R. Marriott were so good as to write that the small gaggle of brunneo-cinereous Geese with black-nailed beak, observed over Needham Market on 18 April 1930, were almost certainly Anser segetum, Gmel.—E. W. P L A T T E N .

O R I O L E ' S N I D I F I C A T I O N . — O n 2 4 April 1 9 2 4 I saw a Golden Oriole and, on the following 14 August, its family; unfortunately the Observation was made just on the Norfolk side of the Waveney River, at Aldeby. There, too, I was so lucky as to discover the nest later in that year. Its note was especially remarkable, and first drew my attention to the presence of some stränge bird in the district.—JOHN L . MOORE. [Oriolus galbula, Linn., is recorded as nesting in Kent, though the Victoria History of 1911 draws particular attention to the fact being unascertained that it had hitherto done so in East Anglia.—ED.] Miss K. A. Tracy of The Tower House, Beccles, adds that one of these or another specimen of this bird was noticed for some time in Gillingham Rectory garden about the same period (in lit. 9 Sept. 1 9 3 1 ) .

Turdus aureus, Hol., IN S U F F O L K . — " Have you heard that a specimen of White's Thrush was killed at Ampton in December 1 9 2 8 ? " asks M R . CATON, in lit. last February.

We had not and are glad to do so, of the occurrence but not the slaying.

It is the first of which we are aware, since the 1881 record by Babington that is ignored in Victoria History.—" A Ring Ouzel (Turdus torquatus, L.) has frequented my Earl Soham garden for the last week and is still with us," writes Major H. de M U S S E N D E N - L E A T H E S on 1 5 September last.

A D E P L U M A T E D W O O D C O C K . — I enclose the photograph of a Woodcock (Scolopax rusticula, Linn.) shot in Suffolk and reasonably close to Lavenham, by a friend, who says the bird flew normally and that he had no reason to think it had been injured. He picked it up himself and at once noticed the missing feathers of the right wing. I should have thought the bird would have had great difliculty in Aying; but there

236

OBSERVATIONS.

was no sign of the lacking feathers : perhaps it never had them, or had been so long without them that it had managed to adapt itself to their absence.—DR. E. C. T. CLOUSTON. A CORMORANT I N L A N D . — D ü r i n g 1929 a Cormorant (.Phalacrocorax carbo, Linn.) came to Lavenham after rough weather, and sat on the church tower. I can guarantee the identification, because I found its corpse in a farm pond two miles away some days later (DR. CLOUSTON, in lit. Jan. 1931).

No less than seven of these birds were feeding at Easton Broad on 20 September, when four Members also saw four Herons Aying over Benacre Broad.

HERONRIES.—I have not been recently to the Heronry at Brantham, as Lady Owen-Mackenzie was unwell. It is in her grounds at Brantham Court that the Herons build their nests, of which were only three or four when I last saw them, built in trees standing upon the brow of a hill overlooking the River Stour.—LUCY HARWOOD. [Mr. Doughty remembers the existence of another unrecorded Heronry, at Blackwater on the River Aide, in 1882. Has it disappeared ?—ED.] THE BITTERN.—A specimen of Botaurus stellaris, L., was seen on the south bank of the Waveney at Beccles on 1 March this year, and several previous days, by Mr. Tilney and others. No one has observed it since that time, though a local gunner boasted he was " going to get it." The bird is constantly heard booming in Spring at Catfield Marsh in Norfolk.—W. FOWLER. SUFFOLK MAGPIES.—I was most interested in the note about Magpies (Pico, rustica, Scop.) at page 149 supra, and it shows my limitation of knowledge of this county. The day before I read the note in January, I was out shooting and saw four Magpies Aying one after the other across the land between the beaters and guns. Last year I walked quietly through a wood with the view of shooting some Woodpigeons (Columba palumbus, Linn.), that I had seen settle in a bare tree. Just as I was in shot, a Magpie appeared on the scene ; apparently in play, it flew straight into the topmost-perched Woodpigeon and knocked it off the twig. It then settled itself: the Pigeon seemed to take the matter quite good-humouredly, and perched again. In 1928 I walked up a hedge, continually putting out Magpies, until eventually I was able to count fourteen birds in the air at once. Having never seen as many as this in a day in any county, I had arrived at the conclusion that they were much too common here ; but, when I come to think it over, I recognise the fact that all the Magpies I have seen in Suffolk have been within the same two miles Square. At any rate the species does not seem to be nearing extinction in my District of Lavenham (E. C. T. CLOUSTON).—A pair of Magpies

OBSERVATIONS.

237

was seen by me Aying in Occold near Eye on 11 June last.

The present shortage of keepers in likely to make for this bird's increase (Chris. GREAVES). [One was observed at Ashfield Lodge near Debenham in July ; and several noticed dead upon keepers'-trees near Mildenhall in August. Throughout the Cotswold Hills and as far west as Ross in Gloucester the species is as abundant this year as it is in central France, where no other kind of bird so frequently attracts attention.

Obviously in Suffolk it is in no danger of extinction, so the subject need not be further pursued.—Ed.] PELICAN IN SUFFOLK.—Quite unconnected with the exotic species at page 74 supra, it should be noted that during abnormal heat and persistent south-west winds, on 21 July 1906 Patterson of Yarmouth watched for some time a visitant wild Pelican (unnamed and not in the Suff olk list of 1911)," sitting in the middle of Breydon Water " (Trans. Norfolk Nat. Soc. viii, p. 466).—A Hoopce (Upupa epops, L.) was observed ' within six miles of Ipswich' at the beginning of last September (Local Paper). The locality was Capel. " O I L POLLUTION AND S E A B I R D S . " — S i r Cooper Rawson's bill before Parliament interdicts the discharge of oil within fifty miles of the shore ; the Washington Convention extends such limit. Every oil-driven ship will have to carry separators, as already do liners and the later ships of the British Navy.

Upon the subject of oil's effect, we have been favoured with the following communication, in reply to that of page 150. " To the Editor, Transactions of the Suffolk Naturalists' Society. " Sir.—Mrs. Clodd would have made her point just as effectively if she had suggested that I must have forgotten ' E.K.R.' would have altered his opinion, in the face of ever-accumulating evidence. But what exactly does this evidence amount to ? Naturally enough, Mrs. Clodd would have no possible doubt as to what caused an oiled bird's death when she sees in a—nay, in every—torpid but clean seabird resting on the beach the victim of internal oil-poisoning.

But an open question is how often she might be mistaken in the case of the oiled birds ; whilst, in the case of the clean and torpid ones, I believe she would be in error every time. What evidence has she that oil is poisonous to birds ?

On one occasion I saw a single Black-headed Gull, and on another a whole flock of them, apparently feeding greedily on particles of crude oil, and some of them seemed to have got slightly oiled on the breast in the process. Being mineral oil, I believe the birds would be unable to digest i t ; but that it would pass through their bodies unchanged, as I

238

OBSERVATIONS.

understand the preparation known as ' Toilet Paraffin ' passes through ours. And does she seriously think that an oiled bird could remove all traces of oil from its plumage ?

When she finds a Guillemot dead on the beach, perhaps she will examine its tongue and see what a thoroughly inefficient Instrument this is for the purpose : and, of course, the beak would be equally ineffective unless the bird actually plucked out all soiled feathers (assuming it could reach them) but in that case the feathers would not be swallowed, nor oil either. Surely Mrs. Clodd is aware of the appalling'destruction of diving-birds due to prolonged bad weather : treating of her immediate neighbourhood, the late F. M. Ogilvie in his ' Field Observations on British Birds' says at page 29 " On the East Coast, I have seen the high water mark strewn with dead Guillemots, Razor-bills, Puffins, Little Auks and Gannets, after a prolonged gale." The reason is quite simple as, apart from the buffetting of the gale, the fish on which they feed retire into deep water where the birds cannot reach them.

The question of the birds' vitality is not so easily disposed of as Mrs. Clodd thinks. Gorleston beach is unworkable at the height of a gale, owing to the blowing sand ; but, after the worst wind is over and whilst a heavy sea is still running I have more than once seen an apparently dead thougb really ' torpid ' Guillemot squatting on the beach, face to sea It has got up, when I approached, and walked down the shore m the wash of a receding wave, either beating the beach with its wmgs or holding them up apparently as balancers accordmg as the beach happened to be flat or steep, until it stood facmg a terrific comber just turning over to break, such as one imagined must throw it up a mangled corpse. But, at the last moment, it springs into the air and, with wings m'ovmg at a fearful rate and quite possibly alternately, plunges into the rearing arch of water, disappearing like a train entering a tunnel, to emerge shortly afterwards beyond the worst of the broken water. Yet the bird, capable of this apparently Herculean effort, is dying of starvation through bad weather and will be dead on the shore next day. Naturally such a bird, lf caught, would feel very strong in your hands. It would appear that birds brought low by starvation lose the power to digest food before they have lost the ability to capture it ; and that is why it is, I believe, useless to attempt to feed them. If you cram food down their gullets they will doubtless eject it ; or, if they are unable to do so it will merely hasten their death.

12th September, 1931.

Yours faithfully,

c. G. D O U G H T Y . "

OBSERVATIONS.

239

T H E E D I B L E F R O G (Rana esculenta, Linn., of typical form) is indigenous only to the fenlands of Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, throughout all Britain. However, it was brought by Mr. G. E. Mason about 1884 from Foulden in Norfolk and put down " in ponds at Brandon in Suffolk, a favourable locality from which both forms, typical and varietal, appeared to be absent " previously (Dutt's Wild Life EAngl. 1906, 171). The var. Lessoncs of this species used to be quite abundant not far away, between Thetford and Scoulton, where it had probably been introduced by the mediaeval monks from Lombardy (Handbook Nat. Hist. Cambs. 1904, p. 106). " I have seen several specimens of the Great Crested Newt (Molge cristata, Laur.) that had been fished out by schoolchildren about 1927 from a pond at Fiddlers Green in Onehouse village."—GRACE W A T S O N , in lit. Oct. 1 9 3 1 .

M A M M A L S . — A relative living at Bredfield Green has some peculiar Mice in her new house. Her cat killed one and left it on a chair, where she was able to see that it was partly white and partly brown, whence it became termed the piebald mouse.

While I was there after Christmas this cat caught another, and brought it alive for her kitten to play with ; I found it to be our old friend Mus sylvaticus, the Wood Mouse : a most superior form of house-mouse, surely ! At all events, they do not smell ; and I have heard that they will destroy any other kind of mice on their bailiwick. My relative promises to look out for one with a yellow neck-tie, in case it should prove to be the variety Wintoni.

Both sexes of this variety were presented (Trans. Norf. Nat. Soc. vii, 1904, p. 722) by the Revd.

Julian G. Tuck from Tostock to Norwich Museum in 1903.

—H.

ANDREWS.

The Noctule Bat has occurred at Waldringfield near the River Deben ; it sometimes reaches fifteen inches in expanse of wings, but fourteen would be quite a fine specimen. I shot one or two in April 1911 for the late G. P. Hope of Havering Grange in Romford, a sound all-round naturalist, who would make no mistake of the animal's identity.

I was not quite sure of the species myself, but Hope had no hesitation in regarding it to be a " fine Noctule," as he told me on 12th of that month. There was a large colony of Longeared Bats [Plecotus auritus, L.) in a barn at Hemley durmg 1913 • but I suppose this species is not uncommon in Suffolk " (A. P. W A L L E R , in lit. 21 August 1931). Both species do, or did twenty years ago, occur at Martlesham : the former Aying high and commonly in early dusk (Mr. Doughty, v.v.).—Düring 1913 PC. Howard, now stationed at Earls' Soham but then at Homersfield, shot, at the latter place on the north Suffolk border, a Bat that measured by his official foot-rule, fourteen NOCTULE'S DISTRIBUTION.—"

240

OBSERVATIONS.

inches in expanse ; it was Aying near or among numbers of the common Pipistrelle. The large size suggests this to have been Vesperugo noctula, which is five inches in length with front teeth overlapping ; though V. Leisleri runs it close, with nearly four inches and the teeth not overlapping. It is,' Mr. Andrews considers (in lit. 18 Aug. 1931), " almost bound to be a Noctule, for Leisleri is smaller and rather rare in this country. The Bats that I take to be Noctules are of great size and quite frequent around Bury, always in pairs, of which one will haunt a stretch of road, Aying high, straight and fast up and down the road : I was particularly observing a pair a few evenings ago in the half-light, Aying about at the height of a tallish tree. I have noticed no other Bat to Ay in this manner."

WHALES.—The " Cetacean bones, strewing Bawdsey beach in hundreds throughout the past two years " (supra p. 116), are not those of Balcena australis ; but Whales certainly of the genus Mesoplodon.

Of the latter genus, seven species named medilineatus, floris, planirostris, angustus, compressus, tenuirostris and gibbus, occur in the Crag ; and among these the last is the commonest kind found. The remarkable point is that no bones at all have been seen there during 1931 by us or Mr. H. E. P. Spencer of Ipswich Museum, who considers them to have been washed out of the coprolite bed at the base of the Crag, immediately above the London Clay. Hence this cetaciferous Stratum appears exhausted, and the current has carried the earlier-excavated bones further south.

The recent bones, referred to (supra p. 78), are the jaws some ten feet in length, and not ribs, of the Greenland Right-Whale (.Baiana mysticetus, Linn. : cf. Trans. Norfolk Nat. Soc. ix, p. 303) : we saw them still in position in the main street of Great Wratting in Suffolk during August 1930. The five Orwell Whales are not the southern, but the Atlantic, Rightwhale (Balcena Biscaiensis, Esch.) ; and a young Grampus (Norf. Soc. vi, pp. 58 and 116), of seven and a half feet in length, was landed by a fishing boat at Lowestoft on 13 November 1894.

There would seem to have been a Whale-jaw fashion in the way of arches, which yet remain sprinkled up and down the country-side: e.g. a third pair of Arch-jaws (fig. Country Side Mag, 1905, p. 71) yet stands at Eastington in Gloucester.

A W H I T E - B E A K E D DOLPHIN (Lagenorhyncopus albirostris, Gray), seven feet in length, was seen at Gorleston in April 1890 ; a second, four feet and eight inches long, was found dead on the beach in April 1891 ; a third went up the Yare into Breydon Water in August 1891 (Trans. Norf. Nat. Soc. ix, p.

306) ; and a large school of them passed Yarmouth, going

Home of the Pine Hawk, Suffolk.

The Deplumated Woodcock.

Falcon and Falconer, Hopton.

Pleistocene Bones from Easton Bavents.

OBSERVATIONS.

241

south, on 24 October 1911 (loc. cit. 457). Also, a young male was captured off Lowestoft in March 1876 (figured in Southwell's 1881 * Whales of Brit. Seas,' p. 126).

A " great fish " was reported to our Society by Mr. John Rose of Kenton, who saw it, already washed ashore dead, at Reydon on 10 June 1931 ; it was some seven feet long. Dr. Collings writes of it " I went to the spot on 19th and found the beast had been removed ; but a reliable observer describes it as a Dolphin of doubtful species [probably the above L. albirostris.— ED.]. I saw one about ten feet long off the Southwold shore during the war, about 1916 ; it had got into shallow water and was killed by the soldiers' bayonets.'' Another here is recorded in the Local Paper of 25 October 1922.

PAL^EONTOLOGY.—The species of the Molluscan genera found in the Aldeby Bed, named at p. xxxix supra, have since been determined to be Nucula tenuis, Mont. ; ' Psammobia ' is an error for Saxicava arctica, Linn.; Astarte sulcata Cost., borealis Chem. and compressa Mont. ; and Mactra subtruncata, Cost., with very immature ovalis, Sow. For ' Cardium edule Linn.', read C. fasciatum Mont.; Tellina donacina, Linn., was also taken. At p. xl the species are Nassa incrassata, Ström et Müll. ; and Natica helicoides, Joh.—ED. MASTODON A R V E R N E N S I S . — A molar tooth of this extinct Pachyderm, determined by the British Museum to which it has been presented, was found in the Glacial Drift, immediately above Chillesford Clay, in the low cliff at Easton Bavents on 18 January 1931 ; it is seven inches long, three broad, 3 J inches high and weighs 2\ pounds. The two lower bones (figured to scale) were discovered at the same spot a few days later ; the right appears to be part of a rib. They occurred just whence came, and probably belong to the same specimen as, the trochanter in Major Cooper's collection [hence correct from " Mammoth " at Trans, p. 117 and " young Mammoth, Elephas primigenius," at Proc. supra, p. xliv.—ED.], The molar is in unusually fine condition and reported as of especial utility to research work. Unfortunately much is lost by our local people not realising the value of the things they find.— IDA C R I T T E N , i n l i t . 2 5 F e b .

1931.

Also, Mrs. Critten has just (Nov. 1931) discovered a cervical vertebra of Cervus sp., of indeterminable identity the Brit. Museum says, along with parts of antlers and bones, including a large section of tibia, in the Pleistocene drift of Easton cliff. Mr. Doughty found part of an antler of the Red Deer (Cervus elaphus) embedded in this cliff during October 1929.