Observations 2 Part 2

170

EDITORIAL.

Hymenoptera, which is the sole Order still outstanding, our County is found to maintain no less than 8,200 different sorts of Insects. T h u s :— Lepidoptera, M o t h s and Butterflies ( T r a n s , i, p. 3 0 ) : O r t h o p t e r a , Grasshoppers, Earwigs ( T r a n s , i, p. 92) : Coleoptera, Beetles ( T r a n s , i, p. 121) : N e u r o p t e r a , D r a g o n - and Water-flies ( T r a n s , i, p. 181) : D i p t e r a , Fleas and T w o - w i n g e d Flies ( T r a n s , ii, p. 36) : H e m i p t e r a , Bugs and Lice a n d Scales ( T r a n s , ii, p 134) :

Britain 2 0 8 6 ; Suffolk 1356. „ „

38 ; 3580;

„ „

28.

2056.

„

443 ;

„

197.

„

2993 ;

„

1887.

„

1350 ;

„

646.

It is regrettable that Norfolk has made no effort to complete her Insect-fauna : the Lepidoptera have been tended, and their names are now being modernised (in a belated Index to all published volumes, voluntarily compiled at their discretion by two or three of our own Members, and shortly to be issued by the Norf. Nat. Society); a list of Diptera has appeared ; and both Coleoptera and those sections of Hemiptera which treat of Heteroptera, Cicadidae and Psyllidae, carefully worked out.

T h e remaining Hemiptera, with all Orthoptera and Neuroptera seem neglected ; and among Hymenoptera the Aculeata, Sawflies and Ichneumons alone have been dealt with at any length.

Hence no Insect-total is computable for Norfolk ; Cambs and Essex have attempted no finality of the kind. In fact, few Counties have yet been fully worked in this respect: we recall only Nottingham's 4795 species (Prof. Carr, Invert. Faun. Notts 1916, p. 599) and the Isle of Wight's 3535 species (Morey, Guide to I. Wight 1909, p. 541).

OBSERVATIONS. A Naturalist, hailing from Salisbury (call it Sarum), Took a fine lot of Mac. stellatalisbury At some flowers down in Hampshire (call it Hants), VVhere his confreres' sore wampshire Induced him to graciously shalisbury !

FOREST-BED F O S S I L S . — N o t f o r l o n g h a s t h i s i n t e r e s t i n g S t r a t u m

been so well exposed as was the case on 20 November 1932.

In its most northern part on the Corton foreshore, and between 1 \ to \ \ feet below the surface of bluish peat-covered clay, have been recorded the recent Linnean mollusca :—Bithynia tentaculata Limnaea stagnalis, Planorbis corneus, P. spirorhis and Succinea putris with Valvata piscinalis, Müll, a species of Helix or Zonites, and fragments of JJnio or Anodonta sp. (Blake, Geol. M e m . Yarm. and Lowest. 1890). T o these are now to be added the four recent

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171

Mülleran kinds :—Limnaea palustris, L. pereger, Valvata cristata and Pisidium amnicum.—E. A. ELLIS. [The Hon. Secretary has carefully examined numerous water-rolled fragments, taken by local Members in the Lound pit, just west of the church, the previous autumn, and finds them to work out thus :—Pecten opercularis, L., 1 ; P. varius, L., 1 ; Cardium Graenlandicum, Chem., 2 ; C. edule, L., 11 ; Tellina Baltica, L., 13 including two hinges; IGastrana laminosa, Sow., 1 ; Mya arenaria, L., 44 including two hinges ; and 23 other featureless scraps of Bivalves.]

BOTANY : Lycium Chinense, Mill. (barbarum, auett. Ang.)— The Duke of Argyll's Tea-tree, that is stated by St. John to be an African shrub and is one abounding in the Gorleston district, does not set its fruit at all freely, I think. In fact, I was once asked by a botanist if I had ever seen the berry, and had to confess I did not remember ever having done so. It may be worth recording, therefore, that a hedge of this plant at Bradwell was as red with berries in 1932 as a well-fruited dog-rose : in stränge contrast with the Hollies, which seemed almost berryless at Christmas at Martlesham.—C. G. DOUGHTY ; Jan. 1 9 3 3 .

CATALPA TREE IN FRUIT.—Our Member, Mr. Charles Row, teils me that an Indian Bean Tree in his Long Melford garden, which has hitherto regularly blossomed, is now fruiting for the first time in his experience. My wife has been over there and seen beans on the tree.—R. C. BOND, 5 Sept. [ I presume the tree referred to is C. bignoniodes (i.e. syringifolia), the hardiest Catalpa in England. But the seed-pods of even this species very rarely develop, and then in only a peculiarly early and hot season such as the present one. A magnificent speeimen formerly grew in a front garden close to Needham Market church, planted apparently before Catalpa House was built there. Alas, the site of both garden and house is now covered by a shop. This tree used to form pods, which rarely ripened but dropped immaturely.—E. W. PLATTEN.]

T w o LOCAL P L A N T S . — I find Crested Cow-wheat, Melampyrum cristatum, L., to be a quite common plant in the woods round Hepworth, along with the small Teasel, Dipsacus pilosus, L., which also grows sparingly in the River Deben at Thorpe. The former seems almost confined in Suffolk to Hind's western districts 1 and 2, the sole exceptions being Burgate Wood and Bramford about 1 8 5 0 . — E . H. KIRKBY. ADVENTITIOUS BEE-ORCHIDS.—Late in 1 9 3 2 we noticed some strange-leaves Coming up in a piece of ground that had been grabbed from the boulder-clay paddock and added to the kitchengarden in 1892. From 1904 to about 1915 it constituted the potatoe-patch ; but the soil got tired of so monotonous a crop, and since that time has been allowed to lie fallow—Suffolce Vitium : being well sheltered by trees upon all sides, it is a favourite

172

OBSERVATIONS.

resort of subsylvan insects in summer and aquatic birds beside the moat in winter. On the 17th of last June we found that the above leaves had expanded into no less than fifteen beautiful flowering Ophrys apifera, Huds., some of them eighteen inches high, which plant has never occurred within a quarter-mile of the garden, though ever present on the lighter soils of this village.— R. A . M O R L E Y , Monks' Soham House.

PHANEROGAMIC D I S C O V E R I E S . — B y Miss Cracknell: Orobanche purpurea, Jq., Woodbridge district in July last, adds a new habitat to Hind's two.—Mr. Long in June last: Carex echinata, Murr, and Juncus squarrosus, L., at Blythburgh on I s t ; and Vicia bithynica, L., of which Hind says solelv " near Beccles, probably an e r r o r " (these wide-leaved, well grown specimens prove my 1930 find at Hadleigh to be the var. angustifolia, Sy., which adds the var. to Suffolk.—R.B.).—By Miss Rawlins : in May Cochlearia anglica, L., var. horti, Sy., with the type form at Shingle Street (var. new to Suffolk). Barbarea vulgaris, Br., var. arcuata, Rb., at Felixstow (ditto). Trifolium striatum, L., var. erectum, Gasp., Hollesley (and Hadleigh in 1932 by R.B. : ditto). Local but less rare are Viria lutea, L., Hollesley and Felixstow : a pretty prostate mossy mat, leaves finer and flowers smaller, growing in shingle patch surrounded by waste ground. Medicago minima, Desr., Hollesley; Senecio viscosus, L., Felixstow; Raphanus raphanistrum, L., shrubby with dark mauve showy flowers, Felixstow (also at Hadleigh and Brantham in 1930 by R.B.). Sedum reflexum, L., Shingle Street; Lepidium ruderale, L. and Ornithogalum umbellatum, L., Alderton and later Felixstow ; and Carum Petroselinum, BH., at Felixstow.

Ranunculus Lenormandi, Sz., Cornard on 17 June (also Baylham in Sept. 1932 : only " Suffolk " in Hind, 1889.—R.B.) ; Lonicera Caprifolium, L., Shingle Street in May (new to district; Whatfield in 1930.— R.B.) ; Sedum dasyphyllum, L., considered by Lady Rowley to be wild on roof of Holbecks near Hadleigh : recorded only from district 1). Orchis Fuchsi, Dr., var. bratteata, Dr., at Bures on 1 July (var. new to Suffolk); Orobanche Rapum-genistae, Th., on whin near Polstead, 29 June. Sisymbrium Orientale L., i.e. colunmae, Jq., in a wood at Hadleigh on 12 July (a foriegn plant: new to Suffolk). Agrimonia Eupatoria, L., var. odorata, Mill-, at Edwardstone (var. new to Suffolk). Potentilla procumbens, Sb., Edwardstone (not hitherto down for district 2 ; nor is Rumex crispus, L., var. trigranulatus, Sy., which occurs at Whatfield and Semer.—R.B.). Orobanche Picridis on Picris hieracioides, L., only one entry in Hind : Whatfield, 5 June 1933 (H. Clark); Semer, 1931 (neither on Picris and host hardly guessable.—R.B.).

Samolus Valerandi, L., at Cornard Magna on 25 July ; Sagina nodosa, L., at Nayland Stoke on 31 July ; and Helleborine palustris, Sehr. ; are all new to district 2. Cynosurus echinatus, L., Felixstow, 22 July 1933 (a chance stray only at Lowestoft in Hind);

OBSERVATIONS.

173

and Sisymbrium altissimnm, L., a wide-spread alien, newto Suffolk at Hadleigh on 12 July 1933 (and Bamham on 19 July).—Miss Woods also has found S. altissimum, along with Linaria purpurea, L., both in the parish of Melton and new to Suffolk, during July.—The phanerogamic Recorder's yearly hag of locally unrecorded varieties and forms is too heavy a one to be accorded space here. But, if new-to-Suffolk species be finer additions, we have them in prolific Polstead's Gastridium lendigerum, Gaud., discovered on 9 July 1933 ; in Viola riviniana x silvestris; Hypericum undulatum, Sch. and elatum, Ait. ; Prunus avium x cerasus ; Salicornia dolichostachya, Moss ; Orchis mascula x Fuchsi ; and Festuca capillata, Lam., glauca, Lam., juncifolia, St. Am. and elatior x Lolium perenne, Linn.—RONALD BURN. EDIBLE FUNGI.—This year, more especially during the autumn, has been a remarkable one for Fungi, and I made some experiments with the edible kinds. The St. Georges Mushroom (Triclioloma gamborus, Fries.) was found in plenty both on Sutton Heath and near Brandon during May : it proved very tasty, when fried in bacon fat. I had many feeds on my old favourite Marasmius Oreades, Fries., the final one on 24 October. M. C. Crooke says that " in September, certainly in October, none will be found " ; but this is surely a matter of season. If the ground be too hard for them to come up all the summer, they will not be denied when autumn rains soften the earth. Clitocybe nebularis, Batsch, Tricholoma nudus, Bull, and Norfolk Cantharellus cibarius, Fries., were all tried and found wanting, though the first imparted a most delightfully mushroom-like smell to the handkerchief, when being brought home. The one outstanding success was Coprinus atramentarius, Fries., which is really very good stewed and I consider much better than C. comatus, Fries., whereof I saw hardly a specimen. Now I have my eyes upon a quite handy colony of C. atramentarius ; I was too late for the early summer plants, but shall keep a close watch for the autumn crop.—C. D . DOUGHTY ; 18 August.

WORMS.—Thousands of the Comb-worm, Pectinaria Koreni, auct., and their sand-tubes were scattered along the tidemark between Gorleston and Corton on 20 November ; and honeycombed banks of cemented sand formed by Sabellaria alveolata., auct., were exposed at low tide on Gorleston breakwater.

On the north shore of the Yare where it enters the sea, a colony of Lanice conchilega, Pall. [recorded from the Orwell at Vict. Hist.

92.—Ed.] is established above low-water mark ; they build long tubes of sand, shingle and fragments of shells. Little secms recorded of East Anglian Leeches, but the two following species are probably widespread here : the flat-bodied and richly yellowspotted Glossisiphonia complanata, Linn., has been found with the long and reddish-speckled Herpobdella atomaria, Car., in a stream at Strumpshaw in Norfolk during March. I took

174

OBSERVATIONS.

the chaetognathous Arrow Worm, Sagitta bipunctata, Quoy, first during September 1925 at Gorleston ; but it is a common creature in the North Sea generally, and at times captured in vast numbers among samples of offshore plankton (cf. Trans, supra i, p. xxxiii, nota) by the Lowestoft research vessels. The Chaetognatha are a group of marine worm-like animals that, with the Acanthocephala and Nematoda which include the well-known human " thread-worms," constitute Parker & Haswell's order Nemathelminthes. Closely allied to the genus Filaria, species of which infest both human lymphatic glands and the bodies of insects, is the genus Tylenchus that distorts plants. One of these, T. millefolii, was found on 13 May last in swollen midribs and secondary branches of common Yarrow leaves on Gorleston cliff : many kinds are abundant in Suffolk, where no attention has been yet accorded their study.—E. A. ELLIS. A BRACKISH-WATER POLYZOAN.—Membranipora monostachys, Busk., var. fossaria, was recorded from strongly-brackish ditches at Cobholm [in Suffolk, next] Yarmouth, so long ago as 4 November 1906 by Mr. H. E. Hurrell. There it was encrusting long grass-like weed (IRuppia maritima, L.), to which weed many Rotifers were clinging, including Pterodina clypeata, Ehr. This Polyzoan occurs in Breydon-side ditches as far west as Burgh Castle ; in Lake Lothing ; and it has been found on Reedstalks and other debris in a dyke near the Blyth estuary.— E. A. ELLIS. [First recorded from Yarmouth District by Hincks (Brit. Marine Polyzoa 1880, p. 133); later from the above Southtown salt-water ditches by Hurrell; and abundantly in Aldeburgh salt-marshes by Harmer (Trans. Norf. Nat. Soc. viii, p. 498). Ed.] T H E RIVER CRAYFISH (Trans, ii, p. 80).—Potamobius pallidipes, Ler., is still quite common in (1) the Stour river at Cläre (DR. BARNES) and (2) the Gipping at Needham Market (PLATTEN).

One summer about 1915 I used to see these Crayfish in (3) a deep hole of the Deben near Easton ; but I have had no opportunity for later investigation tili the present month, when visits to the Deben at Glevering failed to produce any trace of its persistency nowadays (WALTER A . BROOK, in lit. 2 7 Sept. 1933).

SOME OTHER C R U S T A C E A . — A couple of the parasitic cirriped, Peltogaster pagurus, auct., were found on two rather small Hermit Crabs (Eupagurus Bernhardt, L.) washed on to the beach at Gorleston on 14 December 1932. A small male Ross Crab (Pilumnus hirtellus, L. : cf. Trans, i, 226) came ashore there on 2 March 1933. T h e common Shore Crabs (Carduus maenas, L.), huddled among shrimpers' refuse there, were not infrequently parasitised during 1932 by the copepod crustacean Saccuhna carcini, Thomp. Of Amphipoda, Podocerus falcatus, Mont., continues to live on Gorleston breakwater in the muddy burrows formed on stalks of the hydroid Tubularia indivisa, L. (Trans, i, 224).—E. A. ELLIS.

OBSERVATIONS.

175

GOOSE-BARNACLE.—The large stalked Barnacle, of which Dr. Collings found a bunch attached to floating timber near the shore at Southwold in February 1930, now preserved at St. Felix School there, appears to be that of the legendary duck (Lepas anatifera, Linn.), which is commonest off the west African coast.

MITES.—The small red Mites (Petrobia lapidum, Koch), in various stages of maturity, were abundant on shingle by the Orwell at Trimley during the summer of 1932. [They were also found by us in Slaughden marshes on 20 May 1929.—Ed.] T h e Acarid mite, Laelaps pachypus, Koch, named by the British Museum, was found to be parasitic upon a Harvest Mouse (.Micromys minutus, Pall.) at Lound during 1926. T h e Ga!l mite Eriophyes similis, Nal., was so numerous, causing rosy-coloured swellings on almost every leaf-margin, on a Beiton plum-tree that it had to be felled for fear of infection on 14 May last. T h e commoner Gall mite E. galii, Kapp. (Trans, ii, 79) has later been found also at Hopton, Blundeston, north Flixton, Oulton, Carlton Colville, Wangford, Orford, Syleham and Eye. Is it distributed by means of eggs laid on the burry fruits of Galium Aparine plants ?

— E . A . ELLIS.

Anystis baccarum, Linn., a soft and small red Mite of the family Anystidae, was swiftly running in circles, as though demented, on the surface of my museum table in Monks Soham on 29 August last: that it was perfectly sane is shown by its ending the gyrations by leaping, with a very distinct saltatory motion, on to an adjacent nymph of a little Psocid-fly, most likely Graphopsocus cruciatus, L. (Trans, i, p. 183). A. bacarum is regarded by the Brit. Museum as common, though its jumping powers seem hitherto unnoticed—CLAUDE MORLEY. A Trombidiid Tick, Ixodes putus, Pick-Cam., was taken from the head of a young living Sand Martin (Cotile riparia, L.) that had fallen out of its nest at Southwold on 1 August last. This parasite, the Brit. Museum says, is found to be fairly common on marine birds in Britain and pretty widelv throüghout the world.—D. W. COLLINGS. FLIES SLAYING SPIDERS.—Mr. Eric Bates and I gathered, among many, some fifty egg-bags of a Spider, Agrceca brunnea, Jjl-, that were attached by the female at some distance above the ground to the stalks of stout grasses, mainly Ana caespitosa be »eve, in a boggy spot outside Wood Fidley in the New Forest on LI June 1932. A very few of these bags produced young spiaers in the following August; but a large percentage of them proved to have been destroyed by two apparently distinct kinds ot ichneumon-flies. T h e very day after the bags' cullture i Ter?erged from them one Pezomachus zonatus, Fst. ; at 6 p.m. on 1 July another male and female ; at 10 a.m. on 3rd a female ;

176

OBSERVATIONS.

at the same hour on both 4th a male and 12th a female ; and at 4 p.m. on 15th yet another female: seven specimens in all.

Nothing more emerged until 10 June 1933, when a single pair of Panargyrops tenuis, Grav., was out and lively at Monks Soham.

I am not aware that these Cryptids have been bred since the time of Fred. Smith and Bridgman (cf. mv Ichneumons of Brit. ii, 106 & 188). The constant occurrence of the two kinds in the same pabulum, the first emerging nearly a year before the second, suggests either hyperparasitism or dimorphism of alternate generations. Agraca brunnea has been found in Suffolk, though I cannot recall having noticed its conspicuous egg-capsules anywhere in the County.—CLAUDE MORLEY. GNATS' PARASITIC I C H N E U M O N - F L I E S . — W e have received for names from Mr. E. A. Ellis of the Norwich Museum a male of the Fungus-gnat (Mycetophila bimaculata, Fab.) and numerous pupae, strongly resembling the common pine-stump Mycetozoon (Tubifera ferruginosa, Gmel.) that occurred with them, whence emerged during the autumn at Gorleston both sexes of the Ichneumon-fly (Aperileptus albipalpus, Grav.), which had destroyed the fungivorous larvae of these Gnats : a relationship previously recorded only from Devonshire. They were found upon a fir-stump (Pinns sylvestris, L.) at West Runton in Norfolk on 6 October 1932 : Bridgman found this parasite at Earlham (Tr. Norf. Nat. Soc. ix, p. 592), but the Gnat is new to that county.

Numerous Suffolk records are contained in some " Notes on Braconidae, No. xiv : Alysiides," by our Hon. Secretary, printed in The Entomologist 1933, pp. 136-203, including the descriptions of two species and six sexes new to Science.

H I N T TO TROPICAL COLLECTORS.—Last August, when spending some time in our forest reservation at Tjibodas at an elevation of five to seven thousand feet, my attention was drawn to the fact that Hymenoptera were represented to a much higher extent than I suspected in the fauna of the refuse vegetable matter, chiefly dead leaves, that everywhere Covers the soil in a tropical jungle of the higher regions. I made a collection of this group simply by sweeping my net over the soil, just above the leaves but without touching the latter. This was sufficient to Start the insects, which in this way were captured in almost as great a number as the small Diptera, the species of which seemed to me to be less than that of the Wasps. As the greater part of these Hymenoptera belongs to the Ichneumonidae (a group on which you are a specialist, teste your admirable contribution to the " Fauna of British India "), I allow myself to ask you whether, considered as a whole, the said collection shows some peculiar features in connection with the locality in which the insects were captured.—[Later], Last June I passed a week in Tjibodas and could spend time collecting Hymenoptera and Diptera in the same way as before. The result is some five hundred

OBSERVATIONS.

177

specimens of Ichneumonidae, amongst which I recognise many old friends of my former visit but also believe to discover a number of new forms. The weather was rainy and windy and the dense forest very moist, just the contrary of the Situation of the former August when it was the end of a very dry period of three or four months. It is to this circumstance that I am inclined to ascribe the fact that the Diptera of the fauna of the fallen-off leaves were much more numerous than the Hymenoptera, whereas in August it was just the reverse. It is my intention to collect, as soon as an opportunity presents itself, in forests at a lower sea-level.

Unfortunately such forests are rare in a densely populated country like Java and only to be found in very remote and hardly accessible regions.—DR. J. C. KONINGSBERGER, Directeur van's Lands Plantentuin, Buitenzorg, Java.

GALL-FLIES ON POPPIES.—The larvae of Aulax papaveris, Perr., have been found galling seed-capsules of both Papaver Rhoeas, L. andP. dubuim, L., at Beiton on 16 July ; on the former Poppy the capsules were greatly swollen, but on the latter they appeared from the outside to be quite normal.—E. A. ELLIS. [This confirms the doubtful record of the Cynipid in Suffolk (Entom V 1931, p. 209).—Ed.] SAWFLY BRED.—Throughout September 1 9 3 2 , conspicuous bright orange Tenthredinid larvae, with bold black markings, were abundant upon Lombardy poplars at the southern end of Gorleston. I had known these larvae for many years, and now determined to find to what species they belonged ; so a large number were secured. All continued feeding until early in October, when they span fragile papyraceous cocoons in cardboard pill-boxes, within which cocoons they persisted as larvae tili at least early April 1933, being kept through the winter without moisture in my museum at a continuous temperature of about sixty degrees. The first male imago emerged on 26 April and first female on 12 May that year ; a dozen or more of both sexes were out before the end of May, unfortunately with no parasites among the whole. They proved to be the common Trichiocampus viminalis, Fall., a species occurring upon Salix spp., though very rarely seen upon the wing.—CLAUDE MORLEY.

A MIXED BAG.—The Editorial Staff, backed as occasion arises by most Members in accordance with the subjects attached to their names in the List (page lvi), has been kept satisfactorily busy this year upon the determination of specimens sent in.

Certainly the most composite, and perhaps interesting, of these eonsignments consisted of two small tubes from a lady, who complains of being bitten by the enclosed insects, adding t h a t they bite holes through her clothing. Never have we met so heterogeneous a collection as are these tubes' C o n t e n t s : — T h e «rst showed 1 broken wing-case of the Longicom beetle, Gracilia Q

I

178

OBSERVATIONS.

minuta, Fab. ; 2 female Winter Gnats, Trichocera hiemalis, DeG., which do not bite ; 2 scraps of feathers ; and 1 severely squashed Mycetophilid Fungus-gnat, which does not bite. T h e second tube revealed yet more variety in 2 seed-husks of W h e a t ; 1 leg of a Dipterous fly of unbiting propensities ; 1 scrap of wood, 1 scrap of desiccated vertigris, 1 scrap of quartz, 1 scrap of brick (all about in of an inch in diameter); 4 nits and 1 imago of the Head Louse, Pediculus capitis, Linn., attached to (doubtless human) debilitate hairs ; 1 Wine Fly, Drosophila funebris, Fab. ; 3 lengths of two different fine silks ; a few lengths of cottonthread from a green table-cloth ; 1 debris of a Dipteron, consisting only of legs and sternum, its hind legs with the tarsi broken and basally inflated, their tibiae with an external dark scopula before apices and, like their femora, finely setiferous throughout, but insufficient to name ; and several loose balls of fluff, whose solid cores once had been immature larvae of the Clothes' Moth, Tinea pellionella, Linn. Hence the biting insects were Head Lice, and those puncturing the lady's vestments were Clothes Moths : Q.F.D. !

BEF.TLES AT L I G H T . — I am not aware that it has been hitherto put upon record that the Malacoderm, Malthinus punctatus, Frc., is attracted to artificial light. Several previous occasions, upon which such had been the case here, were recalled by the occurrence of a male at a bright oil lamp in Monks Soham House at 10 p.m. (true time, of course) on 24 July 1933. Both the beetles Aphodius ntfipes, L. and Lagria hirta, L., frequently arrive indoors to the same lamp and the former came so late as 7 October this year ; but Serica brunnea, L., a great lover of light in woods (cf. Entom. xxvii, p. 26), is not found on boulder-clay : Mr. Bedwell has taken it also on " sugar " at Oulton. Later, on 27 July and 2 August, Geotrupes stercorarius, L., flew in here at 9 p.m., with its usual horrific buzzing, which is so great that Mrs. Burton, who had a similar experience at Ballygate House in Beccles on 6th, was quite alarmed. It was accompanied at Monks Soham on 2nd by Oxytelns sculpturatus, Grav. ; and on 17th Geotrupes spiniger, Msh., flew in. Hardly had the moth-lamp been lit for two minutes at Fritton Lake, at füll dusk about 9 p.m. on 7th, before a beautiful male of the Wasps-nest Beetle, Metaecus paradoxus, L., settled on the sheet.—R. A. MORLEY. LADYBIRDS ON FLOWERS.—In the Brandon marshes on 22nd August last, I noticed no less than twenty-four specimens of Coccinella septempunctata, L., sucking a single flower-table of Angelica sylvestris, L. T h e bright scarlet of the beetles formed a charming contrast to the milk-white table, upon which their presence seems noteworthy, at least in such numbers, as I cannot recollect having found the species attracted by flowers before.

There too, near the staunch (then in course of reconstruction),

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179

I saw one or two Chilocorus similis, Ross., on sallow ; Coccinella mutabilis, Scr. and C. W-punctata, L., were fairly common throughout the Breck, but never on flowers.—ERNEST A. E L L I O T T .

L E N G T H OF G L O W -WORMS' LIFE.-—The note on this subject, appearing at page 82 supra, may be a little misleading as from it imagines would seem to be exhibiting their light as late in the year as 28 September, whereas these lights were evidently intended to be recorded as those of large larvae. It is very well known that the larva of Glow-worms has the power of showing this lampyrine, although it is usually not so strong a luminance as that given off by imagines. [Certainly the larva was intended ; it was found, lighted, at the same spot in mid-September 1933.

But the subject is not concluded ; for the late Canon Fowler (Ent. Month. Mag. 1903, p. 18) had " seen the female displaying her light as late as November " in Oxon.—-Ed.] I may add that a female of the macropterous form (whereof Butler, in his Biology of British Hemiptera, knew but five specimens) of Nabis lativentris, Boh., occurred to me at Corton on 5 September 1906.

This form is hitherto unrecorded from Suffolk.—E. C. BEDWELL, 25 March 1933.

DEATH-WATCHES' ORIGIN.—Any second-hand furniture-dealer will teil you that the Death-Watch Beetle is invariably introduced into your old house in the " period " chairs and tables you buy to bear it countenance. Never was greater error. This beetle has no preference of woods, but will bore as contentedly into deal as oak ; even ash does not come amiss, and in 1907 I bred from an ash-stump in my Monks Soham garden several, along with Priobium castaneum, Fab., Anaspis maculata, Frc. and the rare Lissodema A-pustulata, Msh. Recently abundant confirmation of Death-watches' ferality was supplied by a scrap of sawn-off apple-branch in this garden, six inches long by about as much in girth, brought indoors late in 1930. Wondering what it might contain, I placed it in a covered bell-glass ; and in October 1932 I examined the emergers:—three spiders, apparently Epeira cornuta, Clk. ; two millipedes, Julus albipes, Müll ; and forty-nine woodlice, Oniscus vulgaris, L. The total eighty-six insects belonged to four Orders, though of Lepidoptera was but a single chrysalis, presumably of Laspeyresia Woeberana Schf., always common about that old tree ; on it and its kind had doubtless preyed the three Hymenoptera, Sigalphus floricola, Wsm. and Calyptus sigalphoides, Msh. Of Diptera one small Mycetophilid gnat belonged to the genus Sciara, and an evacuated puparium looked like that of Tephrochlamys rufiventris, Mg. Among beetles, I was surprised to find half a dozen Hedobia tmperialis, L., usually accounted uncommon ; the others were three Bruchus rufimanus, Boh., with one (of its?) larvae, one

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OBSERVATIONS.

Anaspis testacea, Ste., two A. ruficollis, Fab. and no less than sixty-seven Death-watches, Anobium " domesticum," Frc. !— CLAUDE M O R L E Y .

A NEW EVIL.—Beetles, of which I enclose a specimen, were recently found in one of the outbuildings of Mill House at Dennington, the upper storey of which is used for meetings, the assembled folk sitting on unpeeled Elm blocks that were presented six years ago by Mr. T . H. Read from Grange-farm in Tannington.

A brown powder was noticed, a few weeks since, on the floor of this room and, upon the bark of the suspected blocks being stripped away, very many Beetles and their larvae were discovered.

I spent last week at the house and saw numbers of both in a lively condition, although all the blocks had been daubed with paraffin.

T h e larva is about a half-inch in length and very pale, with a large dark and hard head. T h e room is kept quite clean, and there are no signs of beetle-ravages in its other woodwork. Is it not curious that, if these larvae came inside the blocks, their presence has not become manifest for so long a period as six years ?—T. H. WELCH, "VVitnesham; 4 July 1933. [No, because the enclosed specimen is Callidium variabile, Linn., one of the Longicorn beetles, all of which live some years in the larval State.

T h e female lays eggs on or below bark, through which the hatched little larvae penetrate to the hard wood, wherein they tunnel without again approaching the surface tili prepared to turn into pupae : hence their depredations are totally hidden from view.

This may partly account for the Beetles' presumed rarity in Britain ; the Tannington examples add a species new to the Suffolk list. Strangely, no longer ago than last year the same insect emerged equally numerously in Norwich Museum out of an Oak-bough, from Hargham in Norfolk, that had been employed as a mount in an exhibition-case : thence most of our East Anglian collections have been supplied.—Ed.] A 100-YEARS A F T E R . — I found a single Melanosoma populi, Linn., sitting on the topmost shoot of a young Birch, about eighteen inches from the ground, in Redgrave Fen on 10 August this year. Previously two specimens had been taken by me in Cambs, on dwarf Sallow at Wicken on 5 July. But all refused to live in confinement.—E. H. KIRKBY. [This beetle has not been found in Suffolk since Pagets' 1834 record of it from Beiton B o g : Coleop. of Suff. 1899, p. 81. T h e species was in the utmost profusion, along with its larvae and pupae, on the most usual food-plant Salix repens, L . , in the Turf Bog at Shapwick in Somerset at noon on 28 June last.—Ed.] BEETLE N E W TO S U F F O L K . — A p i o n minimum, Hbst., was beaten sparingly from young Sallow trees in Parham Wood by me on 13 May 1933. It is a very local Weevil throughout England, hitherto recorded from only Kent, Surrey, London and Derby : unless William Kirby's examples, which he described (later than

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Herbst) as A. velox, came from Suffolk a Century ago. T h e larvae are inquiline in the galls of species of the Sawfly-genus Nematus on Willow, Salix alba (sec. Perris) or of Diptera (sec.

Redtenbach) : on the Continent, it has been bred from galls on Salix vitellina, S. cinerea and S. repens.

A REDISCOVERED APION.—Just below the Heronry in a dozen Scots fir-trees on the southern bank of the river, east of Blythburgh village, lies a hard mud-flat that is covered with salt-plants and at especially high water by the tide. Among them is a profusion of Sea Lavender (Statice limonium, L., of which a colony is recently become established on the south bank of Breydon Water), at the roots of which I have occasionally searched for the beautiful metallic-purple Weevil, Apion limonii, Kirby, for füll fifteen years as well as among that now extinct plant in the Southwold salterns of the Blyth. On 8 September last I had the joy of finding this Weevil for the first time in our County at Blythburgh : it has been lost since Stephens vaguely locates it '' on the coasts of Suffolk, etc. " a Century ago (Illust. Brit. Entom. Mand. 1827-35).

Specimens were not common, suggesting the Weevil's recent establishment on the mud-flat; so Dr. Blair, M r . Doughty, Dr. Collings and I were all conscientiously sparing in their capture. That it ought still to inhabit our coast had long seemed evident from this locality's extreme similarity to Holme on the Norfolk sea-shore, whence the species was originally described in William Kirby of Barham's 1797 paper on British Apions (Trans. Linn. Soc. ix, pp. 1-50): it was the last kind enumerated, and his admiration was expressed in " finis coronat opus." At Holme it was rediscovered in 1841 ; and I found it to be still abundant there in 1906 ( E M M . ann. cit., p. 229). T h e British distribution seems restricted thence round the south-east English coast only as far as Southampton and I. W i g h t ; but it is the plant and not humid Situation to which it is attached, for Mr. Bedwell writes (in lit. 28 Sept. 1933) " I find it even on the bare chalk cliffs at St. Margarets Bay in Kent, because S. limonium grows there : quite a different sort of habitat from any other of which I a m aware."—CLAUDE

MORLEY.

FUNGI ON F R O G - H O P P E R . — A dead Homopteron [presumably Aphrophora salicis, DeG., which we have never yet noted dead in Sphagnum-moss or elsewhere.—Ed.] that was found clinging to the under side of a Marsh-pennywort leaf in Fritton bog during early September, proved to have been slain by the entomogenous fungus, Entomophthora aphrophorae, Rost.

Subsequently Cladosporium herbarum, Lk. and Cephalosporum muscarium, Fr., grew upon the dead insect.—E. A. F L L I S .

SWALLOW-TAILS IN SUFFOLK.—A single Papilio Machaon, L., was taken in an outhouse on Mr. Borley's farm in Fakenham at the beginning of this month. It is a good specimen, and the only one I ever heard of here after forty years' residence.—

(

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R. B. CATON, Fakenbam Old Rectory, SufFolk; August 1933.

[At that time the second brood was Aying freely in the Norfolk Broads; we netted (and liherated) a few of them. But our Fakenham example came doubtless on a westerly wind up the Little Ouse from Wicken or near it, where the species, a very strongflier,is increasing we are delighted to find. No Suffolk records emerge for two-and-thirty years, when the late E. J. G. Sparke told us that " a young friend of mine saw two in Tuddenham Fen and I caught one, but let it go again: a splendid fellow. I hope they will get established, for they once flew all along the stream to Mildenhall, according to old accounts " {d. also EMM. 1902, p. 38). This excepts only an odd, and pretty surely escaped, specimen that was found by Dr. Vinter on the glass wind-screen of his motor in Parham marshes on the morning of 15 August 1918.]

DECREASING BRIMSTONE BUTTERFLIES.—A Century ago, before 1827, Lastitia Jermyn found " Gonepteryx Rhamni in Woods, and Road sides, in the Meadows near Bramford Church during Spring, beginning of June and in Autumn : Caterpilar on Buckthorn." Kirby asserted (Introd. Entom. 7 ed., p. 521) that it usually hibernates as a pupa, but often in the perfect State also.

The June food-plants are Rhamnus catharticus and R. frang L., of which the latter is comparatively rare with us, growing mainly in north-west Suffolk. But the former is still much too frequent to account for the Butterfly'sydiminution in numbers.

Brimstones are interesting because almost perpetually on the wing : normally the perfect life extends, throughout the winter, from late July to early June ; but in 1933 the last specimen was seen in mid-June, by the Revd. A. P. Waller, and thefirstat Needham in Higham on 18 July. They are strongfliers,often shabby, and now with us generally distributed though almost invariably seen singly, so that the attainment of a good series takes time.—Colias edusa, Fab., seems confined to the southern English counties this autumn ; we have heard of none in Suffolk, since Mr. Ellis picked one up between his fingers at Bramford on 13 June.

SPREAD OF WHITE ADMIRALS.—Though not noted by our earlier Lepidopterists, R. J. Ransom of Ipswich possessed Limenüis sibylla, L., in 1846 (Trans, i, p. 25) and Fison records it from near that town in 1859 (Entom. Week. Intell. vi, p. 133), where ourfirstcapture was effected in 1893 and our Hon. Treasurer took it in 1920 ; there it doubtless still occurs locally in sufficient numbers. Bloomfield in 1890 knew this butterfly also from only Nayland-Stoke, Bentlev and Stowmarket: "common in woods near Stowmarket" (Dr. ' Bree in Naturalist, 1857, p. 256).

Mr. Ransom of Sudbury teils us it is very rare at Assington.

All these places are in south-east Suffolk, where it seems to be commoner (cf. Entom. iv, p. 120) than formerly : or was so, up

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to some thirty years ago, for we have a note showing no less than 464 specimens to have been slaughtered by workingmen-collectors in a single south-east wood during the year 1900 alone ! Now come the glad tidings from our Member, Mr. Kirkby, that he has found it to be not infrequent in two woods of mid-north Suffolk, a district in which little or no collecting has been attempted hitherto. Further, Mr. Platten again observed a specimen actually sitting on the pavement, in Needham Market on 8 July last, where none has occurred since he saw two examples on 16 July 1919 there.

DEATHS-HEAD HAWK.—More caterpillars of Acherontia Atropos, L., than is usual have been found in Suffolk this autumn ; and, upon applying for exhibition specimens, the Zoo. Society of London has been overwhelmed by larvae from all parts of England.

Our localities are Wickham Market on 15 August (one, Dr. Vinter) ; Haiesworth, 18 August (N. B. Garrard) ; Felixstow and Ipswich districts in late August (a half-dozen brought to the Museum there); Martlesham (two, Doughty); Bradwell (five, Doughty and Moore) ; and Needham Market (ten, Platten), all seventeen in early September. A male was taken at rest in Ipswich (now in Museum) and Hemley (Waller); bred at Hollesley (R. C. Harris) ; two specimens were found at Stanton and one at Dalham (Frank Burrell), in mid-October. Our younger and more theoretical Members favour a somewhat vague immigration, as the origin of these large numbers. Mr. Platten, with a good deal more thought, teils us that he has seen specimens in Suffolk annually for over forty years and believes " the species is no more common this than in any normal year [twenty specimens at Hemley in 1900.—Waller] ; but the Potatoe haulm is so shrivelled on the plants that larvae are very easily detected feeding upon the half-dead or rotting leaves, and the prolonged drought has rendered the earth-surface so hard that the caterpillars are unable to burrow into i t : some have been seen crawling over footpaths and roadways, vainly searching for a soft spot. Sphinx convolvuli, L., also has been fairly common about Needham this year."

Sesia myopiformis, BORK.—This Clearwing continues to breed m the Apple trees in my Needham Market garden, where I took * again and watched several of both sexes hovering on 9 July j . ( c f - Trans, supra i, p. 142). T h e Fossor, Crabro leucostoma, Linn., was visiting all this moth's holes on that day ; it just popped m and out again without staying long in any of them, doubtless nnding them inconvenient for her own nest.—E. W. PLATTEN. THE MUSLIN MOTH.—Though it may be " generally aistributed" in Suffolk, Diacrisia mendica, Clk., is certainly somewhat rare " (Bloomfield 1890) ; and, though regarded as a common insect throughout both England and Ireland, it is useless to blink the fact that we hardly ever come across it in our

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eastern counties. For forty years I have maintained as strict a vigil on its occurrence as a single person may, and here is the sum total:—One in Bentley Woods, May 1894 (Ernest Baylis); two in the same woods and at Washbrook, 1896 (Hocking); three females in Bentley Woods in Junes 1898 and 1929, and May 1933, as well as one pair in Monks Soham garden in May, the female in 1907 and male in 1933 (Morley) ; one at Gorleston on 28 April 1921 (Moore); one at Bawdsey, one at East Hopton and a pair at Bradwell in May 1933 (Doughty). That is to say thirteen specimens, of which five are from Bentley and no less than six occurred in the present spring, along with others to Mr. Kirkby at Hepworth.—CLAUDE MORLEY, June 1933.

Eucestia rufata, FAB. ; &c.—This geometer, that we used to call Chesias obliquaria, Bkh., seems local in Suffolk. Bloomfield in 1890 knew it from only four districts : the Breck, Gipping Valley, Playford and Aldeburgh. It is still fairly plentiful in Lingwood's old locality near Needham, and the interesting point is that it occurred here this year so early as 7 May. About the same date I found larvae of Lasiocampa quercus, L., feeding on Honeysuckle, a food-plant new to me and omitted in St. John's useful " Larva Collecting and Breeding."—E. W. PLATTEN. [Since 1890, E. rufata has been taken in the first district by Sparke, and in the second at Ipswich by Henry Miller and at Hogs Highland ; but at neither of the others, nor in all Lothingland.

Additional localities are Bentley by Gibbs and Hocking, and on 18 July 1914 by ourseif at light in Monks Soham, throughout which village is no Broom ! We were informed by the owner of the property, Mr. Thomas Singleton, who welcomes Naturalists, that Creeting Hills were invaded last spring by J. E. Hare of Lincolns Inn, F.E.S., the Revd.—Edwards of Winchester and his brother of London, Arnold Hughes and other Lepidopterists, who took a score of E. rufata but no Fidonia limbaria (supra p.5).]

FIDONIA LIMBARIA (p. 9, supra).—Our Member's brother, Col. C. G. Nurse, late of Timworth Hall in Suffolk, writes to say that he can slightly extend the occurrences of this Moth in our County. Mr. Platten's article carries the species down to 1903; and its British history is now prolonged to 1911 by the discovery of " a fair number of worn specimens somewhere in Suffolk that were netted by the late Mr. Percy Reid of Feering Bury in Essex (EMM. 1933, p. 33), which numbers amounted to eight examples, taken together near Stowmarket (adds Mr. Gilles, in lit. 1 Jan, 1933). Do these additional eight years exhaust the species' feral existence ?—Mr. E. P. Wiltshire writes from Beyrouth in Syria that in 1932 he both captured Ancylis {Phoxopteryx) inornatana, HS., at Cavenham, which Tortrix is recorded with us from only the adjoining Tuddenham; and bred to

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185

maturity the common Swift Hepialus hectus, L., from a larva found at Fritton in April feeding on roots of White Campion, Lychnis vespertina, Sib., an unusual food-plant, and with no final resort to Bracken shoots.

LEPIDOPTEROUS JOTTINGS OF 1933.—Our Hon. Secretary points out how, after he had collected Coleoptera for some forty years in one restricted area, there tumbled into his net a beetle that was hitherto recorded in Suffolk only from the other end of the County (Trans, ii, p. 81). T h e same kind of thing, in lesser degree, happened to me this season : I have kept an eye for well over forty years on the Macro-lepidoptera in my garden here and the district surrounding i t ; but for all that, last March on my garage door, I caught sight of a moth which seemed unfamiliar and proved to be Xanthorhoe multistrigaria, Hw., of which there are but few Suffolk records.* My knowledge of the Micro-lepidoptera being limited, I constantly expect to make the acquaintance of additional species each year ; nor has this one disappointed me. In May Adela rufimitrella, Scop., appeared almost at my front door; A fibulella, Schf. and Micropteryx aruncella, Scop. (sepella, Fab.) at Ramsholt; and Argyresthia retinella, Stt., amongst birch in my garden.

At Southwold during the latter part of June Eucosma trigeminana, Ste., occurred among Senecio jacobaea; Anarsia spartiella, Shr., and Brachmia gerronella, Zll., among U l e x ; Elachista rhynchosporella, Stt. (NEW to Suffolk), among Carex and I also secured E. lenticomella, Zll. Near Covehithe at the same time Hemimene alpinana, Tr., was found to be just emerging among Tansy; it was first taken in the county by the Bishop.

From roots of Achillea millifolium collected at Waldringfield H. sequana, Hb., was bred, as well as from roots of Tanacetum that were collected elsewhere. From Chenopodium came Phthorimaea obsoletella, Fsch. ; and from Atriplex portulacoides what I believe to be P. instabilella, Dgl. Amongst July insects were Eucosma Scopoliana, Hw. and Mompha ochracella, Ct., both at Hemley. Of other species, that I had met with before, mention may be made of the pretty Pammene Rhediella, Clk., hitherto taken but singly by me, probably on account of its habit of Aying high over the tallest hawthorn hedges ; above such a hedge at Hemley it was swarming in the sunshine during early May. At Southwold Lithocolletis ulicicolella, Stt., which I was uncertain about there last year, occurred in some numbers but it is decidedly local; as also is Tinea arcella, Fab., that was Aying on one tavourable evening in abundance, yet a week's previous searching J T u d d e n h a n , Yarmouth, Aldeburgh, Bentley (Bloomfield 1890); ™ =aIlow blossoms near Ipswich on 23 March 1861 (Last, Ent. Wk. nn 7 n«' P - , 2 7 ) ; Bentley Woods, one on 24 April 1893 (Morley) ; Belstead 7 March 1894 (Hocking). None later.—Ed.

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had turned u p only about a half-dozen examples. There too Phalonia tesserana, Tr., was very plentiful, and some richly marked forms were obtained. Here Crambus latistrius, Hw., came in to light on 4 September : only twice have I met with it here before.— A. P. WALLER, Waldringfield.

INTERESTING MICROS.—The Phycid Homoeosoma nimbella, Z1L, first found in Suffolk at Kessingland and Southwold in 1889 (Bloomfield's 1900 Adds.) and again at Lowestoft in August 1922 (Entom. ann. cit., p. 258) was taken on Pakefield cliff on 30 July last. A fine example of the locally rare tortrix Acalia literana, L., was noticed in Benacre woods on 19 March. Other tortrices were Lozopera Franciiiana, Fab., at Corton on 12 July ; Pammene Rhediella, Clk. and Euxanthis straminea, Hw., with the tineae Pleurota bicostella, Clk. and Fumea intermediella, Brd., all at Dunwich on 21 May. T h e appearance of the summer Tineola biselliella, Hum., in a Lowestoft house on 14 March was erratic ; and I have been considerably surprised, since Meyrick gives its imago State as extending only from June to September, to capture a perfect specimen of Ephestia elutella, Hb., in Lowestoft on 3 February last. Does the species hibernate ? More likely its peculiarly early debut was due to its emergence in a baker's office, where the heat would naturally tend to obviate natural conditions of life ; but none were seen there later. Plodia interpunctella, Hb., has occurred in numbers with it, but only during its normal season. [A late brood rather than early, or in this genus there may be a continuous emergence rather than a succession of broods.

E. elutella frequently occurs in November, and a bake-house might give a still later date. I used to take the species at Hemley, and this year it (teste Metcalfe) has turned up in Waldringfield rectory.—A.P.W.] I will add that I have been so fortunate as to capture Phlyctaenia cilialis, Hb., this year at Wicken Fen in Cambridge, the sole county of its known occurrence outside central Europe, though its food-plant Carex riparia grows in all districts of Suffolk.—JACK GODDARD. FREQUENCY OF Libellula fulva, MULL.—Having taken only a Single specimen near the coast at Hopton during the preceding September, I was much gratified to discover both sexes of this species in the hottest days of early June to be quite unexpectedly common along the southern edge of the Waveney marshes below Shipmeadow, where they breed in the irrigation dykes doubtless. T h e most favoured spot for the imagines was just dry enough to allow Walking upon the alluvium ; here the Dragonflies sailed back and forth, with a swooping flight, among alderbushes below a damp southward copse of oak, hawthorn, hazel and sallow. They appeared to attack no other insects, but were much given to sunning themselves upon any dead (and consequently warm) spike, be it alder-branch, bramble-stem or last

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year's Hemlock : a habit dissimilar from that of L. depressa, here absent. Associated Dragonflies were Calopteryx virgo, Pyrrosoma nymphula and Agrion puella ; with the Butterflies G. rhamni, napi, cardamines, Megaera, phlaeas and Sylvanus.

This shows L. fulva commoner than hitherto known (cf. Trans, i, p. 21), with a more westerly ränge in northern Suffolk.—JOHN L. M O O R E .

A PUDDLE.—They had been carting timber through the wood for the last few winters and left a broad furrow in the stodgy Boulder-clay glade, which was füll of water some six or nine inches deep by two feet broad in earlv May. T h e upper mud on either side was freely sprinkled with yet apodous Tadpoles basking in the hot sunshine, through whom beetle-larvae strolled or sometimes swam apace, dislodging from his perch but quite ignoring each en route. T h e perfect water-beetles Agabiis bipustulatus, Hydroporus planus and palustris with less common Coelambus decoratus, came floating from the leafy bottom to breathe the surface-film of air, there lingered to enjoy the warmth, then dived again : the while that film was nimbly skated to and fro by numerous Water-walkers, Gerris odontogaster. Below them the Water-boatmen, Corixa Fabricii, bobbed along in characteristic progression that often butted them inattentively against an inert Tadpole, who refused to budge for such a featherweight blow. T h e cart-ruts' fauna was completed by various small Dolichopodid and Ephydrid flies, such as Xiphandrium monotrichum, Hydrellia griseola and Parhydra fossarum, that floated contentedly upon the water, wafting here and there by gentle breezes.

But these were not all, for adventitious adventurers arrived deviously : an immature Grasshopper (Tettix bipimctatus) leaped like an arrow into the air and, vaguely descending on our pool, swam dexterously to clamber out by hauling his legs up a protruding twig ; the Beetle (Stenus Juno) came adrift from bordering herbage, and circled round with waving legs to shore again; but a wretched Weevil (Ceuthorhynchus cochleariae) was all at sea in so unwonted an element, and sprawled his legs gauchely to catch at any passing straw of salvation.

What happens when this Letheringham pool evaporates and all is dry a fortnight hence ? By then the amphibious Tadpoles will have Freshers' legs to hop away ; and, for the rest, all can unfold gaudy gauzy wings that bear them airily to equally delectable puddles in the wood.

MOLLUSCA.—Theodoxus (Montf. mO=Neritina, Lam. 1816r~) fluviatilis, Linn., is a common snail in the reaches of the vv aveney, from Beccles upward ; and I have found dead shells washed ashore along the bank at Burgh Castle. Possibly it withstands a certain amount of brackishness, as in Norfolk I found rt inhabiting Horsey Mere last year. T h e r e it occurs in the vensum, Bure and Yare, but its extent downwards is not yet

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ascertained. One, with operculum in situ, was found in the gizzard of a Scaup Duck (Fuligula marila, L.) bought at Gorleston on 3 February.—E. A. ELLIS, in lit. 21 February 1933. [Hitherto unknown from the north-east of Suffolk, whence it is recorded as of rare occurrence at only Bramford, Mildenhall and Brandon (Vict. Hist.), though Mr. Brockton Tomlin and we found it in numbers at the last place during June 1903 ; in May 1930 many occurred influvialrejectamenta at Bramerton near Norwich.]

LOCAL DISTRIBUTION OF " WITCHES."—The esturine snail Acera bullata, Müll., was found by three of our Members to be still thriving in " the large saltpan-like pools of Walton marshes on the bank of the Orwell " last August. These are Mayfields' " Orwell Häven " (Jour. Ips. F. Club. 1908, p. 8) ; and probably also Babington's Felixstow (Suff. Inst. Archaeol. 1903, p. 320), though forty years ago good marshes existed close to the pier ry Station. Sorby's 1911 record is unlocalised (Vict. Hist. 93).

Hence, with those at our Trans, i, 103-4, the species' Suffolk localities are Slaughden, Martlesham and Walton.

MOLLUSC NEW TO SUFFOLK.—Our Hon. Secretary and I were collecting Crag fossils in the bank of the stack-yard at Street farm in Newbourn on 27 May last, when he noticed a living specimen of Cochlicella acuta, Müll., adhering to the old-tarred side of a barn. Search in only a very small area among herbage, below the living one, revealed no less than thirty-seven dead shells of this species ; but no more live specimens were found, and the weather was much too hot and dry for Snails to be active.

The British Association visited this stack-yard in September 1931 (cf. Trans, supra i, p. 222); and it occurs to me that one of its members may have emptied out a box of these Snails alive, that had been captured far from Suffolk, not with any view to founding a colony but for the purpose of releasing a box for the reception of the fragile Crag shells that are found here. However this may be, Mr. Mayfield considers ours to be a sporadic colony, and instances similar Suffolk ones of Helix pomatia, L. and The Cartusiana, Müll. C. acuta inhabits dry grassy places and san hills over most of Ireland (Mr. Morley took it at Killiney near the Dublin shore on 2 July 1913), by the coast of Wales, the western islands of Scotland with the counties Kirkcudbright, Wigtown, Ayr, Sutherland and Caithness. It occurs throughout the south and west of England, abundantly at Tenby, and we met with many dead shells at Burnham on the Somerset coast this June. A specialy large form is found inland near Brighton.— C. G. DOUGHTY.

SEA-SLUGS.—The zone of Obelia geniculata, Linn., with its accompanying fauna andflora,on the riverside piles of Yarmouth harbour, was well exposed during a low tide on 13 May. Upon theseflourishingmarine Hydroids were feeding a very small

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189

JEolid. sea-slug.—E. A. ELLIS. [" Several Gastropods of the order Nudibranchiata were brought to me by a shrimper at Yarmouth on 20 April 1904 ; I believe them to be Molis papillosa, Linn."

(Trans. Norf. Nat. Soc. viii, 122). In Britain are a hundred and five, and in Suffolk four, species of these subshell-less Mollusca.—Ed.] Of our late Member (cf. Trans, ii, p. lxii), Col. Freeman's splendid collection of Mollusca, the British kinds remain at Bury Museum in Suffolk and the foreign species have gone to the British Museum.

PRACTICAL I C H T H Y O L O G Y . — O n 25 April last I cut open several spring Herrings (Clupea harengus, L.) and found that the bright red substance, that resembles silk-thread, in the gut had already disappeared; its absence points, I think, to the Herrings' improvement in condition unusually early this season. I contend that Herrings, Sprats and possibly Mackerei (Scomber scomber, L.) take to the bottom at times, though this is not generally admitted because they are not ground-fish. Certainly I have proved by long and close Observation that the moon more or less regulates the water-level upon which fish swim : thus on some nights I have caught all three in the very lowest part of the floating wall of network ; but at moonrise the Herrings have also risen.

French fishermen habitually work in accordance with the moon, net raising and sinking along with its various" phases. I believe that all those fish which scientists class as ground kinds leave the bottom at times, and ascend to the surface in search of food.

This I have found the case with Conger Eels (Conger niger, Cuv.), a pronounced ground-fish, of which I have easily captured monsters that were floating, coiled and nearly lifeless, resembling a lifebuoy at some distance away, when the moon was füll and frost sharp : such Eels had exposed their heads, while snapping at small fish, and are unable to withstand frost.

Nor can the little Cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis, L.), which frequently comes ashore during frosty weather ; I have seen them come aground tail first and, on touching the beach, immediately eject their ink. For these I have given as much as a half-crown each, as bait for Codfish (Gadus morrhua, L . ) : Cuttles are most attractive to Cods, especially when the water is füll of Sprats : then fishermen will bait every alternate hook with Cuttle and öprat, so that the Cods are carried down a greater length of lines.

Whenever the sea is thus teeming with myriads of Sprats {Clupea sprattus, L.), I have caught Cod of thirty pounds weight that were blind in both eyes; and these, when unhooked, disgorged scores of Sprats, some only just swallowed as was shown by the scales still upon them. It is no uncommon experience, upon putting out Sprat-nets, to see them fill and sink with the weight of these fish while the nets are yet in process of being shot,

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OBSERVATIONS.

especially if they be wet and cause the lints to sink more quickly.

But what puzzles me, and I believe every thoughtful fisherman, is : Where do Sprats go during summer ? I have no answer; but, when fishing for Cucumber Smelts (Osmerus eperlanus, L.) during July-August in the River Blyth, the drawnet has brought ashore a half-dozen apparent Herrings which, upon the fingers being placed below the tail and moved headwards, were found to be rough and thus proved Sprats that, for some unknown reason, have entered and persisted in the River. Their abnormal size is easily explained since the two waters, fresh and salt, jointly affect them in the same way as they do Oysters (Ostrea edulis, L.), which are laid upon beds in rivers for the sake of additional growth and improvement.—J. C. HERRINGTON. THREE-SPINED S T I C K L E B A C K . — T h i s species of fish (Trans, i, 8 1 ) can stand any consistency of water, from transparency to muddiness. I took one out of some seaweed, left by draw-netters, and put it in a glass receptacle containing fresh tap-water; every third or fourth day I took it out and let it lie kicking, while I changed its water from fresh to salt: and the little fellow showed neither resentment nor surprise. In the Yarmouth Aquarium, put by me into the electric pumping-station, are still a shoal of lively Sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus, L.) that has to contend with whatever water pumps up. It may be salt, saline, fresh and dirty, sometimes after a gale so dirty that one cannot see the shoal at all tili a stick is inserted and the fish then, like a flock of sheep, shepherded against the glass.—A. H . PATTERSON, Jan. 1 9 3 3 .

A TORRID ENCOUNTER.—Outside Suffolk, I have been in the presence of quite good natural phenomena recently, e.g. on a West Indian voyage there was a battle between a Sperm Whale (Physeter macrocephalus, L.) and a Sword Fish (Xiphias gladius, L.) during lunch time on 13 February 1932. I myself did not see the latter carving the Whale : it was the captain of the ss. " Jamaica Merchant " who apologised for his late appearance at the meal and gave an interesting account of the fight that had caused it. At the time we were passing Türk Island, fifteen hours out of Haiti, and I instantly dashed up on deck but could not be sure I distinguished Xiphias preparing the Cachelot for his dinner. I would have given my own lunch to have had a nearer view.—COL. R. C. B O N D , Nethergate, Cläre: in lit.

18 Jan. 1933. [The " mainly pelagic Sword-fishes are among the most savage monsters of the deep, transfixing their ordinary prey which includes Cod and T u n n y with their f o r m i d a b l e sword-beak, and also attacking Whales with that weapon. In such conflicts, Xiphias generally comes out victorious after making repeated stabs, and the Whale succumbs to his comparatively diminutive antagonist" (Royal Nat. Hist. v, 358). Not to be confused with the Saw Fish (Pristis antiquomm, Lath.), which

OBSERVATIONS.

191

has lateral teeth at right-angles along its beak, and seems content with much smaller quarry : such as bisecting human bathers by a single sideways blow of his saw in the estuaries of Madras and Bengal !—Ed.] SPREAD OF MAGPIES.—When I was in Suffolk for a week-end's shoot, the first birds I saw on 10 December 1932 were a pair of Magpies (Pica pica, L,[=rustica, Scop.]). This was at Ilketshall St. Laurence near Bungay, and gave me particular pleasure because, in my recent " Birds of Suffolk," I had considered the species well nigh extinct in east Suffolk. The keeper informed me that he noticed the first there three or four years ago, and had killed three. As these were the only ones that I saw, they cannot be at all common in that vicinity yet. The gradual spread of ränge of this bird is worthy of Members' attention, and I hope others will record any observations they have made on so easily identified a species.—CLAUD B. TICEHURST, in lit. 1 4 Jan. 1 9 3 3 .

[We saw one, a great way off (like Mr. Andrews, p. 93), Aying over the alders beside Kirton Creek just south-west of Foxhall Hall on a balmy winter's day, 20th of the preceding January.

Mr. Ellis saw two in Ubbeston on 15 October 1933 ; and the Revd. Chris Greaves finds they annually nest at Ashfield, near Debenham, in a wild spot where the farmer shoots them unfortunately, because he asserts that they s!ay young chickens.—Ed.]

Motacilla melanops, PALL.—You will be interested to hear that a Grey Wagtail visited the garden here, during frosty weather under three inches of snow, on 21 February. Without hesitation he came not only right into a cemented yard close to the house, but even condescended to feed upon some soaked crusts that had been put out for Birds' delectation. From that date he has persisted in thus sharing meals with Chaffinchs, Sparrows and Sterlings, tili warmer temperature called him away at the end of the month.—RICHARD STILES, Sailors Rest, St. Peter's Street, Ipswich; 6 March 1933. [Probably a larger proportion of the vagrant migrants than has been hitherto ascertained spend the Winter on Orwell banks ; and the species is pretty sure to nest in Suffolk, though Ticehurst fails to establish such nidification.]

AMPELIS GARRULUS, L., etc.—TWO Waxwings were seen by Mr. F. Hill in East Street, Southwold, on 15 March last; and two, Jothers, were noticed about the same date feeding on the aouth Green there. [Ticehurst says Waxwings are supposed to have visited Suffolk roughly every ten years since 1810, which periodicity seems consequent upon " successive good breeding seasons (in Lapland, Finland and Russia), followed by failure ol the food supply." Such decadal appearance is due to ecadency of Observation only ; for "a pair of Waxwings was seen in

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192

BathRoad at Felixstow a fortnight " before 15 December 1931, devouring Whitethorn berries and quite at home with no fear at Observation (Local Paper) ; also, specimens were noted at Beyton, Rougham and Nowton late in 1913 (Tuck, Trans. Norf. Soc. ix, pp. 774 and 831). Eleven were recorded from Norwich Hospital on 4 March 1931 ; four at Trowse Bridge there daily dijring 26 March to 12 April; and a dozen appeared on the outskirts of Lowestoft on 24 November 1932.—Ed.] Some two dozen Bearded Reedlings (Panurus biarmicus, L.), mainly young birds of probably three or four families, were seen among and chiefly at the summit of reeds, apparently feeding on their seeds, bordering an East Suffolk broad on 3 June, when there was but little wind.

A colony of Black-headed Gulls (Larus ridibundus, L.) was nesting in the marsh between Dunwich and Dingle on 5 June, in an area surrounded by deep and shaky mud ; eight of the nests contained eggs and about eight more were almost complete.— D R . COLLINGS, i n l i t . 9 J u n e

1933.

CUCKOO FOSTERERS FÜR S U F F O L K . — I t seems probable that the subjoined is a fairly complete list of Cuckoo (Cnculus canorus, L.) fosterers for this County, compiled from Dr. Ticehurst's recent local book and information afforded me by the Revd.

R. B. Caton, M M . Burreil, Meeson, Mayall, Rolph & Richardson.

Hedge Sparrow, Accentor modularis, L. ; Pied Wagtail, Motacilla lugubris, Tem. ; Yellow Wagtail, M. Raii, Bon. ; Meadow Pipit, Anthus pratensis, L. ; Tree Pipit, A. trivialis, L. ; Reed Bunting, Emberiza schoeniclus, L. ; Yellow Bunting.

E. citrinella, L. ; Reed Warbier, Acrocephalus streperus, Vie. ; Sedge Warbier, A. schoenobaenus, L. ; Robin, Erithaeus rubecula, L. ; Skylark, Alauda arvensis, L. ; Linnet, Acanthis cannabina, L. ; Song Thrush, Turdus musicus, L. ; Willow Warbier, Phylloscopus trochilus, L. ; Grasshopper Warbier, Locustella naevia, Bodd. ; House Sparrow, Passer domesticus, L. ; Greenfinch, Ligurinus chloris, L. ; Chaffinch, Fringilla coelebs, L. ; Red-backed Shrike, Lanius collurio, L. ; Woodlark, Lullula arborea, L. ; Blackcap, Sylvia atricapilla, L. ; Common Whitethroat, S. communis, Lath. ; Bullfinch, Pyrrhula Europaea, Vie.; Spotted Flycatcher, Muscicapa grisola, L . ; Redstart, Ruticilla phoenicurus, L.; & Nightingale, Luscinia megarhynca, Br. The following birds also have been observed feeding the young Cuckoo :—Goldfinch, Carduelis elegans, Steph.; Lesser Whitethroat, Sylvia curruca, L. ; Wren, Troglodytes parvulus, Koch; and Whinchat, Saxicola rubetra, L. Two blue Cuckoo-eggs are recorded, each in a Linnet's nest.

T h e Hedge Sparrow seems to be the commonest fosterer, on the whole. There is no suggestion that the slight Variation of Cuckoo eggs has any consistent relation to the chosen dupe.— T.

G . POWELL, O c t .

1933.

OBSERVATIONS.

193

A N OPPIDAN Alcedo ispida, L . , AND O T H E R S . — I t will interest Members to know that, like the one recorded by me at page 95 supra, a Kingfisher has taken up quarters under some old stageing at the north end, which is a very busv part, of Ipswich Dock.

He has been there since at least late December last; and on 1 January was actually fishing in the lock-basin, using the beams of the big gates as a point of vantage. There is a surprising quantity of fish in the dock just n o w . — R I C H A R D STILES, T h e Sailors Rest, Ipswich; in lit. 30 Jan. 1933. [This fascinating bird frequents the small waters on the boulder-clay of High Suffolk in an irregulär manner and at no particular times of day.

These are the dates of Iiis Observation recently upon the moat at Monks' Soham House:—27 Dec. 1930; 6 Jan., 3 Feb., 14 Aug., 13 & 14 & 28 Sept., 4 & 6 & 18 & 24 Oct., 26 Nov., 1 & 2 & 14 Dec., 1931 ; not again seen tili 3 & 6 (when one knocked himself silly by dashing into the museum and butting one of the windows !) & 14 & 16 Aug., 20 Sept., 8 & 9 & 12 (on both front and back moats) & 14 & 15 Oct., 27 Nov. twice, 8 Dec. 1932 ; 15 Jan. and not again until noon on 24th of the very hot August, 1933. He was Aying at Butley Passage on 18 August 1931 ; and Mr. Doughty recognized the cry in Herringfleet marshes on 20 September 1932. Ticehurst's " migratory movement" may account for its autumn frequency, but there is here no corresponding spring influx; and the species is a good deal commoner in the County than he would lead us to believe.]

One intensely hot day early in last June, a bath was being filled with water by hand in a Reydon garden, when a Kingfisher flew at the water with such force as to injure itself upon the containing bath. The alluring sound of falling water doubtless combined with the heated air to render this usually timorous bird all too bold. About the same time another Kingfisher, which species is not rarely seen hereabouts, became entangled and damaged in wirenetting that covered a ditch on Southwold Common, pretty surely in its attempt to come at the ditch's water.—J. C. HERRINGTON ; 7 June 1 9 3 3 .

A BIRD'S PELLET .—Deposited upon the top of a fence-post at the foot of the Polden Hill-ridge in Somerset during July, I found tbe regurgitated pellet of some bird, most probably a Little Owl (Athene noctua, Scop.) ; and, as it was obviously composed of beetles' debris for the most part, I had the curiosity to bring it home for analysis. The pellet was oval, and thirtyhve millimetres long by fifteen broad, containing about one hundred undigested members of animals. A dozen Oniscus asellus, L. and two Armadillidium vulgare, Ltr., with a couple ot whole-shelled Helix caperata, Mont. and two other partlyQigested molluscs, were easily distinguished. Unfortunately most of the beetles had been too comminuted by both the bird's before, and stomach after, being swallowed to admit of

194

OBSERVATIONS.

identification; three Onthophagus ovatus, L. and one Byrrhus pilula, L., alone were at all entire. Of the numerous elytra, legs, heads and antennae, our Hon. Treasurer and I could reconstruct nothing certain beyond Carabus violaceus, L., Harpalus ruficornis, Fab., and Pterostichus madidus, F a b . — C L A U D E MORLEY. BREEDING OF H O B B Y . — A competent observer reports to me that, in a " certain " wood in East Suffolk about mid-August this year, he saw an adult Hobby (Falco subbuteo, Linn.) feeding two young ones on an adjacent branch. It is most gratifying to know that these birds were spared.

T h e Stone Curlew ((Edicnemus scolopax, Gmel.) was again a very late breeder near Butley this year, eggs hatching on 23 July.

Harriers, most likely Montagu's (Circus pygargus, L.), ha.'e often been seen this summer over a certain heath and forest area in east Suffolk. A pair may have bred, though no direct proof seems forthcoming. The firm re-establishment of this splendid Bird as a regularly nesting species in that area is, it must be feared, more a subject for hope than expectation, in existing circumstances.

Four Turnstones (Arenaria interpres, L.) were observed on 4 June, feeding along with a single Dunlin in one of the meres on Shingle Street beach in Hollesley. They left, Aying north.— T.

G . POWELL.

'

8

OCCURRENCE OF Q U A I L . — A female Quail (Coturnix communis, Bon.), Aying among Partridges at Rushmere St. Andrew on 11 September, was shot by Mr. John Sherwood senr. The specimen is to be presented to Ipswich Museum. The latest previous record of this species in Suffolk appears to be during 1917 (Ticehurst's Birds, p. 484).

A Shelduck's nest was found, while I was camping in Orwell Park at Whitsun, in a hole of an oak about twelve feet from the ground. The nest is nearly always in a burrow in the ground [as was the case in the low Crag cliff at Ramsholt in May 1932, below an Ash root. Ed.—The nidification of Tadorna cornuta, Gmel., in trees would seem rather a local peculiarity : cf. British Birds, Jan. & Feb. 1929.—T.G.P.] A very peculiar Great Tit visited my bird-table this spring. It was dull black all over, with a brighter blackmarking on the breast. Its beak was very thin and long, shaped like that of an Avocet (Recurvirostra avocetta, L.). I managed to get within a few yards of it, and should say that this beak was one and a half or two inches long.

RACHEL M . K I N G .

[Such a remarkable Parus major, L . , can have been only a stränge freak. A man, whom I met casually at Staverton, had seen a precisely similar specimen in a park near London this spring.—T.G.P.]

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OCCURRENCE OF Platalea leucorodia, L.—I write to report that I saw a Spoonbill on the Aide River on 13 May 1933, which fact may interest our Members. I looked for it again during the next two days, but did not see it.—CRANBROOK (in lit. 25 July).

BRECK J O T T I N G S . — T h e r e have been few Birds of note in this District in March. I saw a Buzzard (Buteo vulgaris) at Euston on 23 ; it was a much darker bird than the poor victim of this time last year, and no doubt will meet the same fate. T h e foreign Rooks departed on 13 ; and I have seen no Grey Crow (Corvus cornix) since 14, so they left ten days or a fortnight earlier than is usual. Wheatears (Saxicola oenanthe) and a Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus rufus) appeared on the 13, decidedly earlier than in most years.—I do not agree with General Lotbiniere's views upon Breck afforestation (Trans, supra, p. xxxvii). T h e land so planted will never grow a tree worth sixpence : one cannot expect such wretched soil to do so. T h e trees will eventually destroy the appearance of a tract of unique country (cf. Trans, i, p. xli).

The employment of many warreners ceases and, as there will be no keepers to look after Stoats and other vermin, the rest of us will be flooded with game destroyers. I shot over all the Downham district years ago, so know what I am talking about.

In July a Great-spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopus major, L.) was on my lawn for some days and, which seemed curious, it carried off crusts of bread put out for other birds. On the same lawn for some days was a young Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus, L.), fed by a Pied Wagtail (Motacilla lugubris, Tem.) ; I saw it last on 18 July. T h e Swifts (Cypselus apus, L.) were all gone from the Church by 31 July ; in fact, most had left some days ere this : an early migration, as they generally stay tili about 12 August.

1 think they leave as soon as the young birds are strong enough for the flight and this year, with the continuous hot weather, they nested early and had no drawbacks from cold days. There have been no stragglers since the last seen, on 6 August, were travellers.

We have had more Swallows (Hirundo rustica, L.) than usual this year, and on some of the cottages in the village were more nests of Martins (Chelidon urbica, L.), though fewer on my house.— R. B. CATON, F a k e n h a m ; 2 6 A u g u s t

1933.

CONGESTED NIDIFICATION.—Last evening I went out upon an egg-quest. And it may interest you to know that, among one small clump of Gorse, within a very few yards of each other, I discovered nests of Chaffinch, Linnet, Robin, Hedge-sparrow, Blackbird, Thrush, Whitethroat and Lesser Whitethroat: eight species, represented in all by no less than sixty-three eggs and young. Here was nothing rare, but the whole is a remarkable ^ c o u r s e for so small an a r e a . — F R E D . R. STAINES ; in lit. 9 May

196

OBSERVATIONS.

OiL'Pollution.—Pursuant upon Mrs. Clodd's letter on Oiled Birds (Trans, i, 149): I was feeding Gulls, mainly Black-heads (Latus ridibundus, L.) as near Suffolk as Norfolk in January, when a grey v Herring-gull (L. argentatus • Gmel.) flew up that had its breast as black as though

tarred. It was in strong flight; though, as soon as it begins to clean itself, mischief will follow (fig. 1). But Gulls, and Blackheads in particular, rarely come to grief in this way ; for, in picking up their food, they dip only their bill and toes into tbe water (fig. 2): and, moreover.theygo ashore to sleep.

It is the Rock-birds that suffer so terribly because, though they may select a clear area of water in which to dive, they cannot always choose a clear exit to the surface. T h e n the oily stuff somehow clings at once, and a miserable death is the end of them. I dissected a Guillemot (Uria triole, L.) last November Fig. 2 that was in a sad mess, most especially in respect of the wings which were as though treacled and glued over. I stood the yet living bird upon the ground, but its head rolled over in a very few minutes, showing it to be dead. So I extracted the intestines, finding no food whatever inside the bird ; and from the vent upwards extended a strip of black and oily stuff, resembling a long piece ot

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197

string dipped in ink. Every time the bird tries to rid itself of the oil, it takes a sip and thus additions ensue. Years ago, when sea-birds were clean, those that died during storms found sepulchre within Hooded Crows (Corvus cornix, L.) or the kindly north wind enshrouded their bones below drifting sands.— A. H .

PATTERSON, i n

lit. 4

Jan.

1933.

A female Shag {Phalacrocorax graculus, L.), acquiring adult plumage, is recorded as Coming ashore to die at Gorleston on 8 March 1933. A Fulmar Petrel (Fulumarus glacialis, L.) was found by Mr. Doughty dead on Southwold beach on 6 March 1932.

The following paragraph went the round of the Press last February :—" After the gale had abated in the Channel early on 2nd, over two hundred Seagulls [Larus spp.] were found dead on stretches of the beach near Dungeness, and many others were found dying in the same area. T h e Gulls had died from starvation after their wings had come in contact with crude oil, and prevented them from moving freely."—But, of course, the gale had nothing whatever to do with the destruction of the birds (writes Mr. Doughty, in lit. 7 February). Probably they were not our common Gulls but, at least to a large extent, Kittiwakes [Rissa tridactyla, L.] which apparently never come ashore to feed on ploughed fields. Coward writes of this species : " A winter gale of long duration tries it, driving down its food ; immature birds especially are weakened and driven ashore, only a few saving themselves by Aying inland before the storm. After a gale the shore is often littered with corpses." Gulls are not divers, but pick their food off the surface while their wings are raised well over their backs ; also, when settled in the water, their wings are still quite clear above the surface. T h u s their breasts and underparts would become oiled, not their wings.

AN EXTRANEOUS R E P T I L E . — " A few days since, as a Dutch fishing boat was lying off Orfordness, a large Alligator was observed lying on the water in an exhausted State. T h e crew succeeded in getting it on board safe, and took it with them to Holland. T h e instance of such a creature visiting our seas has never occurred within our recollection " (Nautical Magazine, reb. 1833).—P. E. RUMBELOW. [Surely this wretched specimen was Crocodilus vulgaris, L. : Alligators are confined to Neotropical fresh-water.—Ed.]

T w o IN A WOOD.—Along the narrow footpath shaded from the sun by bushes in Letheringham Park, we met a Stoat on 4 May last. He was in the broiling sun, we in the dappled shade, so he did not recognise Man. But he heard h i m : and reared on nind legs for a clearer view above the primroses, celandines, Darren strawberry and grasses. Our immobility reassured him,

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OBSERVATIONS.

for there was no breeze, and he quested into the adjacent scrub of honeysuckle, bramble and hornbeam, circling round through a tangle of stitchwort and late anemones to just four feet on my right. Another hind-legs' elevation to prospect the terrain.

T h e n back unhurriedly, and softly off amid the undergrowth's shrubbacity, swiftly and silently with many upliftings to peer around, and all in the most lithe and graceful manner imaginable, füll of rearings, twistings and vertical convolutions: the " s l i m m e s t " Cat is a clumsy brüte compared with a questing Stoat's savoir faire.

A N U R B A N S T O A T . — A few moments ago, while quietly sitting here in my office, I became conscious out of the corner of my eye of a movement on the floor and, upon looking down, saw to my astonishment a fine full-grown Stoat who stared at me for fully five seconds ; then he darted off, under a bookcase and down a hole in the wainscot. This house, no. 2 St. Peters Street in Ipswich, is at least a hundred years old and lies right in the midst of habitations, a very long way from any open country. I have never before known a Stoat to venture so far into a town, more especially a big and busy town such as this one.—RICHARD STILES, T h e Sailors Rest, Ipswich; 27 Sept. 1933.

A POSSIBLE POLE-CAT.—I had a quick-sight at an animal, that peered out amidst a phalanx of dead reeds, at Saint Olaves; but it gave me no more than a tail-and-head view. At the time a friend and I were on the otber side of a weedy dyke, and both much impressed by the two looks at its nose that we obtained; but identification with Mustelaputorins, Linn., was not sufficiently satisfactory. W e could get no help from an adjacent farm, whence no chickens had been missed recently; nor did later visits to the ditch reveal the creature again.—A. H . PATTERSON. ROE DEER IN EAST SUFFOLK.—We have recently had the pleasure of hearing a great deal about the beautiful little Capreolus on our Suffolk Breck. In March our Member, M r . H. D . Collings, informs us that the species was imported some time ago into a park within a few miles of our east coast, whence they have spread to many of the surrounding coverts of the wild Dunwich district and are now become so numerous that local farmers meet for the purpose of shooting them within due limits. Such limits may be necessary, but we trust they will not be exceeded; for the Roe is a harmless and delightsome animal.

E Q U I N E ACOUSTICS.—Last March a Horse's skull was found to have been laid, with considerable nicety, flush upon the earth between oak joists, and firmly maintained in that position by pressure from the superincumbent red-pine floor-boards of a dining-room. This room forms part of a seventeenth Century house, that evaded the 1688 great fire, in Bungay, Standing

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199

a couple of feet below the present road-level. Nothing was associated with the skulls, of which the room would contain nearly forty, each with its incisors supported upon a block of oak or stone, in order to raise the frons. The pine flooring in question is probably coeval with the house, since some of its oak joists are quite decayed. Hence the skulls were improbably inserted to prevent dry-rot, as has been suggested. More likely they were found to cause the adpressed boarding to emit a fuller and more resonant sound, when stamped during dances. The idea of thus retaining one's favourite steed, when his days were done, to " swell" festivities is sufficiently novel.

ANOTHER TOOTH OF Elephas primigenius, B L U M . — I have a very interesting specimen of large molar (exhibited 1 June, q.v.) belonging, I suppose, to the Woolley Mammoth. It was dredged from the sea about thirty miles east of Lowestoft, and weighs over fourteen pounds : I think it one of the largest I have seen.—• W. FOWLER, in lit. 29 April 1933.

LESSER RORQUAL : CORRECTION.—Mr. Rumbelow has been so good as to point out that the specimen of Balaenoptera rostrata, correctly recorded in Gorleston river on 8 June 1891 (Tr. Norf.

Nat. Soc. v, p. 327), is identical with that misdated by Mr. A. H. Patterson (I.e. ix, p. 304) from Yarmouth quay-head in 1890.

Erase the earlier date at our Transactions supra, p. 33.—Ed. " WHALE " BONES.—Several further examples of such Cetacean remains have come to light since the Wratting Magna ones were noted (Trans, supra i, p. 240). First a labourer, Clearing an Aldringham hedge, uncovered a stout post of bone, fourteen inches in diameter, that seemed intended to support a field-gate and had been in situ over sixty years (Local Paper, 14 June 1932); next Mr. Partridge asked whence came those bones in Buxhall and elsewhere that give name to Whalebone House in the former village; and finally Mr. Cross was told of an archway at a Badingham farm, and recalled the presence of " a Whale-bone in the bank of Mount Pleasant Hill in Framlingham, removed during road repairs." We ourselves had been Struck by these last Odd Road Fenders and recorded them (Local Paper, 8 September 1911) as " four bones, some three feet above ground and I know not how far below it, said to be ribs of a Whale washed ashore at Aldeburgh." The vertebra of a Rorqual remains in Bawdsey (cf. Proc. post). It seems very hard to come at the origin of these old bones ; anything known of it, and of other such Ornaments, will be welcomed.

SUFFOLK BADGERS' BRTBE.—Mr. Rose and I have been over to the Badgers' earths, and the evidence that they are fully occupied is most decisive. It is very interesting to see the amount of work that was going on. The loose earth at the entrances of the holes

FOREST BED, CORTON.

MJDDLE

GLACIAL

SANDS, COHTON.

C H A L K Y JURASSIC BOULDER-CLAY, CORTON.

200

OBSERVATION?.

had been smoothed by the farmer the previous night and, in nearly every case, the footmarks of the Badgers were most clearly defined ; before two of the entrances we found the old grass that had been brought out to make room for this year's beds. The Badger-roars were perfectly distinct: they ran from hole to hole, to the latrines, and to the tree on which they sharpen their claws ; this tree is much worn away at the base, and had been freshly used for the purpose. But most curious of all was the area, stretching over several Square yards of a neighbouring hay-field, which they had completely mown down to get the grass of which to make their new beds. There was a beaten track to it, that was strewn with pieces of the grass they had dropped in transit.

T h e stems were bitten through evenly at their base, and a large patch of the meadow had been cleanly cropped short.

We put the hunt terrier down the main hole, and she soon challenged. But gradually the yapping grew fainter, then died away ; and it was some time before we could locate it again.

Eventually, by lying with our ears to the ground, we could distinctly hear her throwing her tongue noisily, at a distance of some twelve or fifteen feet from the hole of her entry. Also, we could hear the Badger burrowing. And when after about twenty minutes the dog reappeared, she was covered in fine sandy gravel, with her nose and eyes fĂźll of it, showing that the Badger had been throwing it up into her face. If the quarrv had been a Rabbit, she would have killed ; if a Fox, she would have bolted it; but here there was no sign of her having come to grips at all. We put the terrier down another earth with the same result, and I fully believe the Badgers are both increasing and enlarging their stronghold. It was a most interesting afternoon, and I wish you all could have been there again (see Proc. post, 1 May).

It would be a very great pity if this, our last Badgers' Earth remaining in the County were to disappear ; but, unless another tenant for the shoot can be found or the present one given compensation, that is what will happen. I do hope our Naturalists Society will take the matter in hand. Mr. Rose and I have done all we can. I believe that, if the present tenant of the shoot were offered some small sum (such as two sovereigns), he would agree to leave the Badgers in peace : he certainly kept his word in the matter last year. Badgers are undoubtedly fond of newly-born Rabbits, but a great many Rabbits go to the fiver then paid him ; and this, I consider, was too high a sum. Mr. Harris is the farm's owner, and cannot afford to lose the cash he gets for the shoot (twelve pounds a year, I believe). If the Suffolk Naturalists rescue the Situation, they will have saved many a Badger's happy life.—H. M . VULLIAMY, 22 June 1933.