Observations 3 Part 3

OBSERVATIONS.

273

OBSERVATIONS. ' D o great deeds, don't dream them all day long : ' ' L ' h o m m e c'est rien ; l'oeuvre c'est t o u t . ' — Verbum sapienti sat est.

SUFFOLK SHORE'S

CONSTITUENTS.—One

of

the

finest

stretcbes

of Shingle in all Britain is on the west side of the River Aide in Suffolk reaching north-east to Aldeburgh, and it is still increasing at lts south-west end. It is one of exceptional interest, since it shows m great perfection a peculiarity which is not common to Shingle-beaches : the arrangement of shingle in long sweeoing and parrallel ridges or ' fulls,' as though furrowed by some gigantic plougb.

This formation may be studied with profit at also Dungeness, Orfordness and Felixstow.

But the beaches of our east coast stand in strong contrast to those of the south in their composition : that of Felixstow is of the local pebbles of Flint denved, not directly from the chalk in which it was formed but, from Red Crag capping the Clav cliffs and from surfacewashings, and Gravels of later age than the Crag which have come from the north. After flints, in number, come pebbles of milkv Quart? which also have come from the north, possibiy Norway.

If those lying basking on the beach trouble to turn over handfuls of pebbles, they will find a most surprising wealth for, besides pebbles of Chalcedony or Agate and beautiful C.arnelians whicb have drifted, like the Agate, down the coast from east Scotland there will be others of black or green red-veined Jasper, pebbles ol fine wine-red or purple stone often veined with quar.z whicb have travelled apparently from Scandinavia.

Mixed with them are great numbers of chocolate-coloured pebbles that have a remarkable historv : briefly, thev are known as 'Cement Stones ' that used to be dredged from the sea-bottom and ground into cement ai Harwicb ; they were formed ages aeo when the sea was here throwing up the' old shell-banks of the Ked and Coralline Crags on to a floor of London-clay, which was at that time strewn with enormous quantities of Whale-bones specifically now extinct. All over this part of Suffolk the Craä is underlam by these nodules of clay, hardened by phosphate of lime, together with innumeranle bones and teeth, forming what is known as the Suffolk Bone-bed or Nodule-bed; and hundreds of tons of them have been manufactured into manure known as ' superphosphate.' Locally these nodules are termed Loprolites under the mistaken notion that such bits of Clay were

274

OBSERVATIONS.

the petrified excreta of extinct animals. Among bones above referred to are teeth of Sharks, Whales, Mastodons, Rhinoceroses, Tapirs and other lost Mammals, fallen from the bone-bed in the cliff. Fossil Shells out of the Crag, such as the Cameo-shell and great Volute, Amber that has drifted along from the Balde, and Jet from Whitby, add to the prizes of this wonderful beach.

There remain to consider the beaches of shingle and sand in relation to the harbourage they afford to marine animal life, Mr. Pycraft concludes in his good little book on T h e Sea-shore of 1920 between the pages 91-104.

As a rule, a sandv beach offers but a barren waste to the Naturalist; and that vast Stretch of sand, forming the beach beloved of trippers at Yarmouth and extending southward to Lowestoft without a break, yields to the most careful hunter no more than a few stranded Star-fish or Sea-rnice, a few Sandhopptrs and Shorecrabs, and a few Sea-zceeds torn from the bottom of the sea and cast u p along high-water mark.. This State of affairs is due to the fact that the shifting sand affords no root-hold for seaweeds or any other sort of shelter for shore-dwelling animals ; and the same is true of shingle-beaches, though to a certainly lesser degree. On stretches of absolutelv pure sand there is no source of food, so it is vain to expect to find much besides Sandhoppers which live upon dead fish and other animal matter cast u p by every tide. But even the relatively barren beach affords a never-ending source of interest to any lover of the lower forms of life : it will certainly be the resort of numerous flocks of shore Birds such as Dunlins and Ringed-plovers.

MAMMALIAN F O S S I L S . — T h e recent high tides have brought down heavy falls of cliff at Easton Bavents. Unfortunately I was not able to explore at once and, when I did so, I found that erosion had taken place at the Mastodon Bed (Trans, i, p. 241).

But there 1 discovered little worthy of note by searching the cliffface : (1) a nice length of Deer's antler, which is only partially fossilised, in red sand immediatelv above the Stratum of Chillesford shell-bed : I don't remember ever finding an antler in this State before. And (2) two interesting pieces of Rone, though neither large enough to identify. T h e n 1 heard of a wonderful Mastodonts Tooth having been picked up, so went to interview the finder. Unfortunately it is so water-worn that in shape it resembles an oblong lump of clay, although one can clearly see what it is by the markings and enamel.

It weighs just over three pounds ; and is not such a good speeimen as the one I found, as the cusps are entirely obliterated. However, I have acquired it and hope to exhibit it to the Society.—IDA CRITTEN, Southwold ; 13 December 1936. [Nothing of interest was apparent at this cliff in the following September, when the Chillesford bed was totally concealed by talus.—Ed.]

OBSERVATIONS.

275

EXTINCT IRISH ELK ?—A !eg-bone, apparentlv the tibia of an Elk (Cervus giganteus, Blum.: Trans, ii, 24), though tentatively ascribed to the inevitable Mammoth, was trawled in the North Sea and landed on 6 August last at Lowestoft by the local smack Crecy. It is 45 £ inches long and turns the scale at a half-hundredweight.—From Suffolk Paper.

LUMINOSITY OF OLD TIMBER.—I know nothing about luminosity and have never studied the subject, but was very interested yesterday when mv gardener showed me a piece of Elm-wood, which he said would shine in the dark. Last night 1 carried it into an unlit room and found the statemeni correct: it did emit a distinctly phosphorescent luminosity. The specimen in question is part of a dead Elm-tree that men have been Splitting for firewood in Martlesham : having noticed shining patches, they were curious enough to preserve samples. Such a phenomenon may not be uncommon, and associated with nothing rarer than natural decay of the timber ; on the other hand it quite possibly arises from the presence of some microscopic organism of a phosphoric kind unrecorded from Suffolk, or even connected with the cause of Elm Disease. I am retaining a specimen of the wood to test the durability of its luminous attribute.—THOMAS N. WALLER ; Waldringfield ; 13 April. [The luminosity proceeds from thefinerthreads of the mycelium of mushroom-like fungi, which threads permeate the wood causing decay and, when abundant, lendir.g it a luminous appearance. The phenomenon is generally seen after a long period of wet weather such as we have had this spring, when the wood has become soaked to the necessarv degree. Luminosity gradually disappears as the wood dries. Many species of Agarics can produce this effect, especialy in the tropics ; but in Britain it is most often traced to the mycelium of our common Suffolk fungus, Armillariarnellea,Vahl.—A.M.l Yesterday a gamekeeper and his companion were attracted, while Walking along a Reydon lane, by seeing many chips of Ash-zcood that glowed luminously in the dark. Some of these they brought to me, and I still retain two. The wood in places is wet, but I do not fancy wet wood is usually luminous, so the case seems unusual.—J. C. HERRINGTON ; 3 November 1937.

THE ASHBOCKING C.ROCUS.—There is a note on the Wild Crocus at Trans, iii, 181. May I be allowed to point out that Crocus nudiflorus, Sm., is not known to grow wild in Suffolk and the species probably intended is Colchicum aulumnale, L., the Meadow Saffron, which I have noticed in a meadow bordering the Ashbocking to Coddenham road,floweringin the autumns of several past seasons. This plant is a member of the Liliaceee Order, while the former is a representative of the Iridacese.

Colchicum is reccrded in Hind's Flora from Ashbocking by Professor Cowell who, I believe, was rector there about 1869." Judging

276

OBSERVATIONS.

by Hinds's numerous records, the plant appears frequent in our Connty ; but I know it from only Ashbocking (also here with white flowers), Brettenham Park, and meadows at Grundisburgh and Bealings Magna.—F. W. SIMPSON, Ipswich; 6 January.

T H E BLUE P I M P E R N E L . — I found the Blue Pimpernel, known as Anagallis ccerulea, Schreb., growing in Bailingdon, just over the Suffolk border, last week. 1 do not know whether it is Worth recording, but have not seen it in Suffolk before.—C. F. D. SPERLING ; Ballingdon Hall, Sudbury ; 3 August 1937.

(Recorded

by Hind in 1889 from onlv Long Mclford in this district of Suffolk.—Ed.] W I L D PERFOLIATE HONEYSUCKLE.—Düring last June I visited the Acton wood whereLonicera Caprifolium, Linn., is undoubtedly native, and was fortunate to secure several photographs of it in füll blossom, one of which is upon the opposite page. T h e flowers will be seen to arise in small Clusters from the centres of prettv connate leaves of a light glaucous green colour. T h e Perfoliate Honeysuckle of shrubberies is a different species or variety : I have never noticed the Acton form in cultivation ; I believe that form to be the genuine wild plant, and all previous records of its occurrence in this County to refer to the much larger garden variety.

THE

PASSING

OF

CHALK

FLOWERS.—Unfortunately

our

agriculturalists have been so vigorously advising the chalking of land that this July saw the re-opening of the huge old chalk quarry at the Blakenham Parva road-junction, and the consequent extinction of a most interesting assemblage of rare plants. No beautiful place seems safe from swift change : if any warning had been accorded, this area might have been easily preserved as a Nature Reserve harbouring a rieh downland flora, and its supported insect-fauna, in a limited space. For a decade few or no animals had grazed in the quarry, so Nature had had füll opportunity to adjust herseif. Rare or local plants were : Reseda lutea, L., Cirsium acaule, Web., Carlina vulgaris, L., Gentiana amarella, L., Scabiosa columbaria, L., Orobanche elatior, Sutt. parasitic on Centaurea scabiosa, L., Salvia verticillata, L., Anacamptis pyramidalis, Rieh, which had spread from one plant in 1928 to some hundreds of flowering tubers by 1935, Aceras anthropophora, Br. increased to some fifty speeimens, Avena pratensis, L. and the usual chalk-loving Thymus and Poterium.

T h e opposite photograph shows a robust example of O. elatior upon the edge of an adjacent chalk-pit, associated with various grasses and the small Scabiosa columbaria, L. T w o RARE PLANTS.—The salterns of the Aide River at Snape yielded a patch of the Slender Centaury, Centaurium pulchellum, Dr., to my exploration last A u g u s t : its habitat is a damp and

OBSERVATIONS.

277

grassy track, inundated in winter. All the scanty records of this species' occurrence in Suffolk are some Century old ! With it here was growing the scarce Bird's foot Fenugreek, TrigoneUa ornithopodioides, D.C., which might be expected in just such a Situation.

A L I E N P L A N T S N E W TO SUFFOLK.—Visits this year to Landguard Common (Trans, p. 129 supra) were again rewarded by the discovery of new aliens : Malva parviflora, L., not in Hinds' Flora and apparently NEW to the County ; Bromus laciniatus, Beal., NEW ; B. arvensis, L. ; B. secalinus, L. ; Lolium temulentum, L. ; L. multiflorium, Lam., var. compositum, Thuill., NEW ; L. multiflorutn, Lam. forma; Argopyron repens, P. Beauv., var.

Leersianum, Reichb., a variety NEW to Suffolk. Upon one of these visits was found the very rare grass Festuca uniglumis, Soland., here first noticed by Dr. Goodenough so long ago as 1777 and nowhere eise in our County later : it is indeed a remarkable feat for a sparse annual to have survived in one small area for fully a hundred and sixty years.—F. W. S I M P S O N , Ipswich Museum'; 31 October.

N E W C O L O N Y OF DAFFODILS.—None of the local folk or Southwold botanists appear aware of the vast colony of Narcissus pseudonarcissus, I.., upon v/h ich 1 stumbled, quite by chance while Bug-hunting, on 19 April last. It extends in a line of varying breadth, between the Frostenden stream and arable land, upon the east bank of that stream's Valley in South Cove parish and runs for fully a quarter-mile from near the Domesday Harbour (Suff.

Arch. Inst. 1925, 167) to well on the heath southward. Vandals' worst efforts can hardly harm so vast a bed composed, as the poor and small flowers pretty obviously indicate, of really wild plants ; or, at the least, of plants that have so long ceased to be tended that they have reverted to earlv type. For their presence suggests mediseval planting, possiblv in the gardens of cottages along this ridge that have long been razed.' The old form of cottage, built on oak groundsills, leaves no foundations to impede the plough. Faden shows no dwellings there in 1783. Mrs. Moore's note at page 181 at once flashed to mv mind, but hers were in a wood ; and Hind gives no locality for Daffodils nearer than Brick-kiln farm in Westleton.

T H E L N E T H A M WOODS.—Our Member, the late Eric Kirkby, uiscovered two woods close to his Hepworth home that had never been worked by Naturalists before ; and recorded thence at least three interesting species: Crested Cow-wheat (Trans, ii, 171), which should produce M e l i t t a athalia Butterflies ; White Adnural Butterflies (I.e. 183) and a rare Beetle (I.e. 286, where the woods are erroneouslv ascribed to Wattisfield).

The southward Brockley Wood is now three-tenths of a mile north and one-fifth east; the northward Black Horse Wood is rather

278

OBSERVATIONS.

larger, three-tenth of a mile north and a half-mile east, with a narrow coppice on its west side. T h e surrounding countrv is lower, slightly undulating, and very chalky on gravel in the Wattisfleld vallev.—BROCKLEY WOOD is flat and lies upon terribly heavy Boulder-clay throughout, with more Sallow and Aspen than are usual in Suffolk woods. Yet in its centre is a considerable clump of most unexpected Broom, among a congeries of shallow and probably only occasional ponds, over which Mosquitoes. were Aying. It contains the usual undergrowth of Hazel and Birch of a decade's growth, with many nice Oaks of under a Century and an abundance of Anemones, Violets, Angelica, Cow-wheat, Bügle and the sibylla's Honeysuckle. An orchard has been planted in its east edge and at the soutli-east angle is the hut of a genial old Seaman, who is said to now own the wood.—BLACK HORSE WOOD is but a few hundred yards away and differs in rising steadily westward, with its highest part distinctly dryer, producing masses of Scabious and a few poor Larches, the sole coniferse herearound. At this point I met a female, whose first husband built the hut wherein she and her second now dwell j u s t within the wood's edge. She said the wood belonged to them ; and the man seemed to spend his time, as the fancy takes him, in hacking down miserable saplings of Ash, &c, with some small and very blunt weapon. T h i s wood is younger than Brockley, with no Oaks of much over a half-century except upon its skirts, less Aspen and Honeysuckle, very little Sallow and no ponds ; but more Bügle, Guelder-rose, Scylla and several very nice clumps of young Hornbeam. Here, near its centre, is a drained paddock, cleared and planted with a few Apple-trees, ideal for day-flying insects of all kinds.—In both the undergrowth is just sparse enough to traverse, with no trace of Bracken ; Bird-life seems scarce in such an oasis upon a broad area of sheer arable : Pigeons, Jays and Robins were seen, single Cuckoo and Woodpecker heard, though no game birds, nor is any part preserved.

Hence the fate of these woods appears assured, unless they fall into more responsible hands. T h e day was sunny with slight east air ; no Butterflies beyond Brassica; and Napi appeared, not even a Skipper, though Paniscus is ever in mincl at a new Wood, as were these to me.—CLAUDE MORLEY, there on 17 M a y 1937.

CCELENTERATA.—Numerous specimens, varying from 2\ to seven inches in diameter of the glassy Jelly-fish, Pelagia noctiluca, Peron. (Trans, ii, 282), were being deposited by the tide on the sand south of Lowestoft main pier on 2 2 September last, after a stiff north-westerly breeze the previous day. B u t we have, thanks be ! seen nothing lately of the ' monster sea-blue Jellyfish, weighing forty pounds,' though over 99 per centum is merely water, that was washed ashore dead at Bournemouth the same month, said to be six feet in circumference [IM diam.] and the largest ever

OBSERVATION.

279

seen along the south coast: presumably it was a mature specimen of the highly venomous Cyanea capillata, Linn., that is occasionally numerous in the Orwell and Aide estuaries (Vict. Hist. 1907, 90) and has become classic in one of Sir Arthur Doyle's best Holmes tales.

INSECTS ATTACK SPIDERS.—Several of the small Dragonfly Agrion puella, L., were Aying among the long grass of my Monks Soham paddock at 3 p.m. on 5 June last, when I observed a female dart suddenly at a tall stalk, to the further side of which a large Spider Phyllonethis lineata, Clk., simultaneously scuttled and so saved himself from juicy mastication by the Agrion's jaws.

I had no previous idea that Odonata attacked Arachnida.—CLAUDE MORLEY. SPIDER N E W TO BRITAIN.—1t is not improbable that this addition to the British Arachnida is of frequent occurrence at roots of Statice limonium and plants of kindred taste in the salt-marshes of Suffolk estuaries, as both sexes were captured thus during the latter half of last September, the male by Mr. Horace Donisthorpe on the banks of the Deben River at Hemley and the female by Mr. Claude Morley on those of the Blyth at Blythburgh heronry. T h e Suffolk pair are Lycosa fulvilineata, Lucas, which species inhabits salt-marshes as near Britain as the mouth of theSomme.—DR. RANDELL JACKSON; Chester, 140ctober.

FOOD OF PHALANGIDS.—Sitting quietly on low herbage in the Gelt Woods near Carlisle on 2 July last, I saw a specimen of the common Harvestman, Platybunus corniger, Herrn., beneath which was a dark mass. Closer scrutiny showed the mass to be a partlyconsumed carcase of the rather large fly Chrysophilus cristatus, Fab., upon which the Phalangid was merrily feasting, having already detached one wing. Whether he had nabbed the Dipteron at unawares, or merely discovered the remains after decease, one could not teil: the latter seems the more probable. I am familiar with this Harvestman's stilting hurriedly over grasses and lying at roots of p l a n t s ; but now I was S t a r t l e d to find that I had never seen any Phalangid with prey before : do they habitually eat insects, like Spiders, I wondered.

If they do so by day, it must be most secretively ; but a large percentage of the very few British kinds are certainly noctural. Apparently s t i l l " not much is known of their habits. Some may be seen pursuing their way at night on tree-trunks &c. but many are diurnal as well if not exclusively so. They prey upon small Insects, young Spiders, Acarids, Myriapods and even the young of their own kind " says Pickard-Cambridge in Mon. Brit. Phal. (Dorset Field Club, xi, 166), though he knew nothing of P. corniger's food in particular.

Have Members further observations on this subject ?

CRUSTACEANS' COMPARATIVE LONGEVITY.—On the afternoon of 15 February last, the Kessingland fishing-boats came in at 2 p.m.

2E

280

OBSERVATIONS.

and cleaned their nets.

Thence were cast on to the beach numerous crabs, &c., which I examined just three-quarters of an hour later.

Among them, all the Shrimps (Pandalus Montagui, Lch.) and Brown Shrimps (Crangon vulgaris, Fab.) were quite dead, and the Brittle-stars (Ophiura ciliaris, L.) apparently so ; but, though the numerous and mainly very immature Swimming-crabs (Portunus depurator, L.) were so far moribund that they could move no more than hind legs even after being immersed in the sea for five minutes, both the Harbour Crabs (Carduus Mamas, Penn.) and Hermits (Eupagurus Bernhardus, L.) bristled with life, scuttling away at once in the undertow of the wavelets, especially one big fellow of more than three inches in diameter. The sea showed a smoother surface than is usual here, and the day held balmy airs below the opalescent sunshine. On the wing were numerous Flies (Borborus geniculatus, Mcq, and equinus, Fln., Limosina, Sciarte and small Chironomids), Scatophaga litorea, Fln., affected the fish-offal and several Dromius and Demetrias beetles threaded their way through marram-grass on the denes.—CLAUDE MORLEY. A N OUTSIZE ASTACTJS GAMMARUS, L I N N . — 1 hooked a fine Lobster, weighing about 3 | lbs., on live-shrimp bait at Felixstow Dock pier, when fishing on 11 September. Not every day does one get a Lobster with rod-and-line.—W. D. Hunt in local paper, 14 September 1937.

SANDHOPPERS ATTRACTED TO FICHT.—All kinds of curious animals from toads to keepers are drawn together by a light at night, especially in marshes ; but I have never before encountered a Crustacean in such a Situation. I was out after Noctuid moths on the night of 23 September last in the marshes at the east end of Benacre Broad, and placed the brilliant moth-lamp in the middle of a sheet upon the coast-sand just where it meets the salt-marsh herbage, i.e. is dryest and furthest from the sea. Then I left it for a füll half-hour to search the flowering reed-heads for insects. What was my surprise upon returning to the light to find a dozen Sandhoppers disporting themselves upon the sheet under it. The fact that I was elsewhere disproves any possibility of their having been merely ejected from their holes by trampling.—G. J. BAKER, Reydon. [Prof. Dr. W. M. Tattersall has been so good as to confirm these specimens as the common Sandhopper, Talitrus saltator, Mont. (locusta, B. & W.).—Ed.]

Many years ago when a heavy storm was working up on the Devonshire coast I met, as I went down to the beach, a host of Sandhoppers moving up out of the ränge of the breaking waves : which is nearly as stränge a phenomenon as yours of their seeking the light.—Dr. ROBERT G U R N E Y ; Boars Hill, Oxford, 19 October.

LEANDER SERRATUS, PENN.—The late A . H . Patterson described the Common Prawn as exceedingly rare in our local Gorleston wate'rs. They have been unusually common this year.

I have

OBSERVATIONS.

281

had several, from a local shrimper, frcm time to time. In August I purchased a pint of large ones, such as would seil in Dorset for twopence apiece, from a local fishmonger for seven pence; and he still had a good quantity left. In September I saw quite a considerable heap of them in a fishmongers' window in the High-street here. Not all of these would, of course, be SufTolk specimens, as some would be caught off Corton and some, no doubt, off Caister.—C. G. DOUGHTY ; Gorleston. [Cp. Trans.

11, 271 : L. serratus is " very rare in Suffolk, which is about the lirnit of its northern ränge." (Dr. Robert Gurney in lit.).—Ed.] D o WOODLICE OVIPOSIT ?—'The only Fly that I saw at all plentifully in Hants during last year's very poor season was Asilus crabroniformis, L., hunting Grasshoppers, which latter were in fewer numbers than is usual. Comparatively few Moths and other things came to light: in fact, it was a thoroughly negative year. Here is a query for the Crustacean expefts of our Society :— Do Woodlice lay eggs and hatch them, or produce living young ?

I have several times found a large Woodlouse sheltering under her body a multitude of infants, but such books as I have consulted throw no light on the matter. It seems stupid to know so little of the life-history of such an universal pest. All good wishes to the Society.—ETHEL F. CHAWNER ; Stockbridge, Hants ; 24 Jan. 1937 [The matter is adequately explained by Webb on Woodlice (Essex Nat. 1905, p. 46 : issued separately in 1906).

The eggs, in at least the common species (Oniscus asellus L ) ol Woodlice, are laid at the beginning of summer and are retained in the brood pouch, where they undergo their development recently traced by Prof. Roule in Ann. Sei. Nat. 1895, pp. 1-156 " The ovaries lie on each side of the thoracic segments, with duets running to the underside of the fifth. These oviduets are open at only the time of the animal's skin-shedding, and give upon the inside of each leg-base on the fifth segment. Through them the fertilised eggs pass into the brood pouch that lies below all that segment. Here the larval stages, the last of which much resembles a twelve-legged Springtail, are passed within the egg and their progression has been traced. When the eggs have matured the two sides of the pouch open downwards like a trapdoor, depositing the small and now free Woodlice upon the ground Irom which time they (unlike Insects) begin to grow and continue growing after they have become sexually mature l hat the females protect the young after deposition, as do Earwigs appears unrecorded; and Miss Chawner's Observation upon the point is of considerable interest and value.—Ed.] CENTIPED FROM THE CANARIES. I ought to have recorded betöre, though the circumstance slipped my memory tili seeing those in our Hon. Secretary's collection this year, that during Uctober 1936 a very fair-sized Centiped (Scolopendra sp) of

282

OBSERVATIONS.

fully five inches in length was shown me alive that had just been imported in Bananas to Lowestoft from the Canary Islands, where the species is only too common. Probably that recorded at Trans, iii, 77, was of the same kind, despite its express ' m a r i n e ' description.—JACK GODDARD ; 1 March 1937.

T H E OLDEST INSECT.—Our innate ideas make it seem all wrong that Insects, exemplified by those May-flies which are mere ' beings of a day' (Trans, iii, 199), "can be traced back through past epochs.

Who, who sees the commonest Butterfly fluttering by, would for a moment entertain the notion that similar creatures had thus delighted the eyes of quite Primitive Man aeons ago ? So frail and dancettee an Insect could surely be no lasting thing, much less a permanent force through all Nature ! Cold Science steps in and sternly contradicts our ignorance : a very near relative of to-day's Dragon-flv (and can a more transient object be conceived ?) must have glinted its wings in the sun of Old Red Sandstone times. Lyell in 1874 knew no Insects older than the Coal-measures that immediaiely preceded the Mesozoic age; but Hartt discovered such a Neuropteron in the Devonian rocks of New Brunswick (Scudder in Geol. Mag. iv & v ) ; and Goss went so far as to surmise that Insects' first appearance on the Earth would be cceval with that of Lvcopodiaceous land-plants which had already been detected in the yet earlier Silurian strata ( E M M . xv). Six years laier such hypothesis was demonstrated to be fact by the unearthing of a fossil Cockroach, called Palceoblattina Douvillei, Brong., embedded in rock of Middle Silurian age at Jurques near Calvados in France ; its wing is curiously similar to ihat of the only too common Cockroach (Blatta) of our modern kitchens. And that Insects of some kind were then or but slightly later by no means rare, indeed, is shown by those Scorpions, animals that have always been insectivorous, which were found in the Upper Silurian strata of both Gothland Isle in the Baltic (Paris Acad. Sei.) and Dunoide in our own Lanarkshire (EMM. xxi, 234) : incontrovertible evidence of wondrous persistency.

INVOLUNTARY IMMIGRANTS.—More attention than they have hitherto reeeived might advantageously be accorded our docks and wharfs from Felixstow and Ipswich to Lowestoft and especially the timber-yards flanking the quay at Southtown. All kinds of curious importations are quite likely to turn up. Such are the timber-boring Longicorn Beetles and that fine Indian Rosebeetle, Coryphocera elegans, Fab., that was brought in linseed to Ipswich some years ago, M r Baker's new Southwold Cockroach from the West Indies, Miss Copinger Hill's Saxmundham Slug from south America and our President's cosmopolitian Spider, all taken last year. There cannot be too many observers in such a cause. Identification of these extraneous Animals is not always easy; and not tili this year has a name been found for

OBSERVATIONS.

283

a ' magnificent' (Burr) Cockroach of 2\ inches in length that happened to be picked up by our Member Mr. Ernest Bedwell in Covent Garden on 4 February 1926 : it is the neotropical Blabera gigantea, Linn.

FIRE-FLY IMPORTED TO SUFFOLK.—In the middle of February last an employe found a Fire-fly in Mr. Durrant's fruit warehouse at Beresford-road in the midst of Lowestoft. It is a Click-beetle of the genus named Pyrophorus by Iiiiger in 1809, and turned up in a consignment of Bananas imported from Brazil, probably to Bristol. When at rest it is no more than a narrow Beetle, just 1 | inches long and brown with yellow circular tubercle at the base of its thorax on each side ; but when active these two spots glow with extremely brilliant pale green light, by which it is quite possible to read small print. It is indeed, considered the most luminous of all the many neotropical Fire-flies ; and Wood in his Nat. History adds that " when the insect expands its wings for flight, two more fire-spots are seen beneath the elytra, and the whole interior of its body seems incandescent." Fire-flies have occasionally reached France and England before in consignments of Bananas, &c. (see Curtis in Zool. Journal, i), but none has been previously discovered in Suffolk as far as can be ascertained.

The specimen is still alive and vigorous, after at least a week's captivity.—F. C . COOK; 17 February. [This example is a good deal stouter than the common West Indian Fire-fly (P. noctilucus, L., which we possess in Mr. Elliott's collection, whose larvse are so destructive to Sugar-cane roots) and is certainly P. luminosus, Iiiiger, 1801. The abundant European Fire-fly (Luciola Italica, L., of Italy, Greece, Turkey, the Crimea and erroneously recorded in 1684 from Herts) is a similar but much smaller Beetle of little over a quarter-inch in length, particularly numerous in Genoa where peasants still regard their scintillating hoards as representing the disturbed souls of departed relatives (Sir J. E. Smith's Sketch of Tour on Continent, iii, p. 84 ; cf. Episodes of Insect Life ii, 140; Ent. Mag. iii, p. 53 ; &c.). The light proceeds from a phosphorescent substance, contained in a small sac in the thorax, filled with unctuous matter like melted phosphorus (cf. Kirby & Spence, cap. xxv and Westwood lntrod. i, 241).

Southey has well expressed the abundance of Fire-flies from Chili to Carolina in his 'Madoc ' :

. . . Sorrowing we beheld T h e night come on. But soon did night display M o r e wonders than it veil'd : innumerous tribes F r o m the wood-cover s w a r m ' d , and darkness m a d e T h e i r beauties visible. O n e while they s t r e a m ' d A bright blue radiance u p o n flowers that closed T h e i r gorgeous colours f r o m the eye of day ; N o w motionless and dark, eluded search, Self-shrouded ; a n d anon, starring t h e sky, Rose like a shower of fire.

—Ed.]

284

OBSERVATIONS.

T w o OUTLYING BEETLES.—By no expansion of conscientious elasticity can we claim the Devils Dyke across Newmarket Heath to be in Suffolk : its nearest point is just over a quarter-mile beyond our boundary. And it is a very remarkable fact that at least two Beetles, captured there well over a Century ago, have never yet been found in Suffolk! The earlier is Homaloplia ruricola, Fab. : William Kirby of Barham and Thomas Marsham, See. Linn. Soc., " lea\e our beds [in Cambridge] at seven, and start for Newmarket. A little before we reached the Devil's Dyke, I dismount and hunt for InsecLs, and find in vast abundance Scarabaeus ruricola of Fabricius. This unexpected success to us acted as a cordial and reviver of the spirits. Once more enter the Ram at Newmarket, and here breakfast.

After settling our new colony of Scarabaei in their boxes, set off for Barton Mills " (Kirby's Journal of 10 July 1797, in his Life by John Freeman 1852, 106). The later is Mantura Matthewsi, Curt. : " I found this Insect in great plenty, more than forty speeimens, on Cistus Helianthemum at the top of Gogmagog Hills near Cambridge on 4 July last; and also, on the same plant but in smaller quantity, at the Devil's Ditch, Newmarket Heath, on 2 of that month : at both these places many other speeimens were also taken " (Prof. C. C. Babington, NÖv. 1833 ; Ent. Mag. ii, 118).

Apion Icsvigatum, KIRBY, IN N E W LOCALITY.—Fowler curiously omits ' in arenario quodam prope Gippovicum a Dominus Sheppard bis lectum,' whence the Ven. William Kirby originally described this species ; and Fowler savs only that it has been taken in the corner of a certain field at Birch Wood in Kent (which locality was destroyed before 1891) on the C-udweed Filago gallica, L., by at least five men of whom Stevens gives a summary of its occurrence there at Ent. Ree. viii, 245 and Walton discovered the male which sex " were often of a blue colour, as in A sorbi " (Proc. Ent. Soc. 1841, 32). Just after the late Mr Arthur Chitty had given Janson a sov. for one of these Waltonian males, our Member Ernest Bedwell had the good luck to take both sexes beneath Ec.hium vulgare on the Herringfleet Hills (which locality is now built upon and gardened) in north Suffolk on 31 August 1905 ' in some numbers ' (EMM. 1905, 256). Before 1913 it had been found at also Tubney near Oxford and Braunton in Devon (Fowler, Suppl. 303). On 28 September last I had the fortune to grub a single blue male of this Weevil from sand at roots of mixed Filago germancia, L. and minima, Fr., on the top of a small hill running westward from the brick-works in South Cove village to marshes of the Easton Broad stream : 31 miles NNE. of Ipswich and 12 due S. of Herringfleet Hills.—CLAUDE MORLEY. A RARE BORING-BEETLE.—I write to teil you that I went on 3 February last to Haiesworth for Polvgraphus pubescens, Bach, [cf. Trans, iii, 124]. It is on in numbers, at least the larvas, and

OBSERVATIONS.

285

a good n u m b e r of perfect insects, of which I got thirty, in t h e bark of Spruce-trees in the woods of the Heveningham Hall estate.

It is killing the trees. T h e forester, J. W . Lewis of T e m p l e Court in Heveningham, was exceedingly obliging.

I took some l a r v a and a section of the bark for exhibition in this museum.—HORACE DONISTHORPE, British N a t u r a l History M u s e u m ; 5 February 1937.

A DOUBTFULLY BRITISH BEETLE.—Among ' some Harpali found u n d e r stones' at Antibes on the Riviera in April 1936

by Dr. Vinter (Trans, supra, 201) was a male of the conspicuous Diachromus Germanus, L., which is a Carabid ground-beetle of quite f r e q u e n t occurrence beneath stones or u p o n grass-stems, &c, in marshy situations over the whole of central and most of southern Europe, extending to the Caucasus b u t not to northern Europe. T h i s was one of the thirty British Geodephaga I did not possess, and induced m e to look u p its claim to a native origin. l t was u n k n o w n here to T h o m a s M a r t v n in 1809 and o u r earlier Coleopterists. Samouelle in 1818 ; Stephens in both 1828 and 1839 ; and S p r y - S h u c k a r d (for a copy of whose 1840 book I am greatly indebted lo our M e m b e r M r Goldsmith) all knew it only as " very rare : Kingsbridge, Devon : J u n e " ; the first gives also July, so m u s t refer to at least two specimens. But the second specimen seems hardly explained by C u r t i s ' 1827 " J u n e : Kingsbridge in Devon, and near Bristol, taken by D r L e a c h " (Brit. Entom., pl. cxci, fig. female : presumably quoting Leach in Brewster's E d i n b u r g h Encyclop. of 1810). But considerable obloquy has been cast u p o n the reliabiliiy of the Devon record (Ent. A n n . 1856, p. 67), a n d Leach's captures are not unhesitatingly accepted nowadays, on account of confusion with Continental specimens.—In 1878 Butler (Nat. Hist. Hastings, p. 1 7 ; 1883, id., Ist Suppl. p. 8) cites D. Germanus as being " very rare " in the Hastings district. I n his 1887 Coleopt. of Brit. Isles, Canon Fowler explains that " a few specimens have been taken r u n n i n g on the pathways at Hastings and St. Leonards, Deal, &c. b y " several reliable collectors who are n a m e d . But it has never been found anywhere in Britain since that time, positively u p to 1913 and as far as i am aware later : a half-century's r u n of t h e Ent. Month. M a g . nowhere bears the Beetle's name.

Leach's acknowledged fallacitv discounts the western records ; and the Deal one m a y well be f o u n d e d on an imported specimen ; but the few, picked u p in Hastings and conterminous St. L e o n a r d s over fifty years ago, look as t h o u g h for the decade 1875-85 here had existed a small colony of either the progeny f r o m a similar importation or survivors of an old Sussex stock, n o w finally quashed by a built-up-area. If truly indigenous, the I. W i g h t would surely retain this conspicuous Beetle on its considerable extent of southern undercliff, where it is actually quite u n k n o w n .

1 consider it now best erased f r o m t h e British'Fauna.—CLAUDE MORLEY ; J a n u a r y

1937.

286

OBSERVATIONS.

FRANCE I N JUNE.—On homeward way. Left St. Marine this morning, after a stay there of three weeks with perfect weather until yesterday,. when we had a thunderstorm. T h e Brittany south coast is very delightful and all the country round somewhat resembles New Forest, but of course with lovely sea and skies.

We had a delightful house : Green-lizard Over a foot long (to the tail) in its garden, Glow-worms under our bedroom window, Magpies about the garden. I went entomologically armed, but did not take out my net, though I saw Papilio Machaon, P. Podalirius and Parage /Egeria in abundance and great numbers of Blue Butterflies.—DR C. H. S. VINTER ; 11 June. [The nice little parcel of Beetles, that our past-President brought home with him, seems to consist of Harpalus ntbripes, Dft., Phyllopertha horticola, L., two clicks (Adelocera near punctata, Hbst. & Corymbites near pectinicornis, L.), three Timarcha violaceinigra, DeG., two Chrysomela Banksi, Fab., four Agelastica ? alni, L. and three typical Otiorrhynchus atriapterus, DeG. ; but, if he had only unfurled his net, . . . . !—Ed.)]

A W H I T E BLIGHT.—On 7 November last Needham Market enjoyed a curious Visitation. Myriads of the tiny white-winged Coccid Bug, Aleyrodes proletella, L., were being wafted about in the air from 2 p.m. to dusk. Every pool of water was covered with a film of them ; water-butts and tanks were equally whitetopped, they crowded every cobweb, and my blue overcoat as I walked down the street bore along many hundreds. T h e whole looked like a volcanic eruption of cinerous ashes. I tried to collect some but they were so small and fragile that one simply could not pick them up, and had to obtain specimens from cobwebs.

T h e sight was indeed a remarkable one (cf. Trans, ii, pp. 143 & cxi).—E. W . PLATTEN ; 2 January, 1937.

M U L L E I N ' S P O P U L A T I O N . — I t was one of those disappointing days towards the end of July that make High Summer seem waning, because the sky is dun and the herbage wet from recent rain, though the air retains its balminess and Sol may set all right by Coming forth at any time.

Near Brandon the tall plants of Verbascum thapsus, L., often running up to more than six feet, were conspicuous above the Ragwort and Wood-sage on the edge of an open Oak-wood and still gemmed with dew, round which the plant-bugs, Dicyphus globulifer, Fall, and Plagiognathus arbustorum, Fab., circumspectly ran. We were searching especially for the Tortricid-moths Nothris verbascella, Hb. and Phalonia atricapitana, Ste., of which latter a few were sitting tucked up on both stem and leaf, along with the Psyllid Trioza Urtica, L. No Aphids were apparent though doubtless present, for we found both the Ant Myrmica rubra, Ltr. and Ladybird Coccinella 1-punctata, L., that feed on them ; nor were any of the Noctuidmoth Cucullia verbasci, L., caterpillars seen for some time,

\

OBSERVATIONS.

287

despite the masses of their frass that clogged the base of every leaf: most were already gone down to pupate in the sandy soil.

The very local Breck weevil Cionus longicollis, Bris., had eaten off a good deal of the upper surface in several leaves, both singly and while in cop.; and Longitarsus tabidus, Fab., var. thapsi, Msh. hopped around the roots. At the flowers were plenty cf Bumblebees Bombus sylvarum, L., even on so dull a day which no more deterred the Hoverer-flv Melanostoma scalare, L., though one of the former was taking a postprandial siesta below a leaf.

Numerous Dolichopodid and Anthomyid flies sat disconsolately upon the plant, praying for sunshine ; and one flower-head was crowned by the bright yellow beetle Cteniopus sulphureus, L., common in this district. Mullein is the pabulum of much life : it is indeed pitiable that so handsome a plant should be exstirpated in its former locale by the Eriswell main road by edge-trimming, evervwhere a thriftless work of supererogation.

W I L D HONEY-BEES.—Because our great authoritv, the late Edward Saunders, considers that Apis mellifica, Linn.", is ' rarely, if ever, found wild in this countrv ' (Acul. Hym. 380), I especially noted that it sometimes nests in house-roofs about Ipswich and Tostock, and stressed the fact that in July 1899 I saw a swarm in an old pollard elm quite a mile from any house (Hym. Suffolk, i, 21) at Tattingstone on the Sth of that month. In the course of the following thirty-cdd years, I seem to recollect observing a very few other wild swarms ; but perhaps thev were not in Suffolk, for I find no direct ncte made of them. " Our Member, M r .

Simpson, in May 1936 showed part of a honeycomb of this Bee that had been found in a Suffolk wood, I fancy Staverton Thicks (Proc. 1936, p. ci). And on 13 May last I was delighted to come across many of these Bees, evidently a streng nest for so early in the vear, entering and issuing from a Green Woodpecker's circular hole, eleven feet from the ground on the east side of a century-old oak, in Blythburgh Wood. As regards their ' domestic ' habits, I may add that a nest of strength that varied in direct ratio to the favourableness of the seasons persisted in a small hole in the w e s t ' shingled ' face oi my old Monks Soham house for fully a decade from 1915, tili exterminated or evicted by social Wasps, Vespa Germanica, Fab. DANCING

HABIT

OF

THE

GENUS

BLACUS.—Since

I

had

the

pleasure of recording (Trans, ii, p. 297) the hitherto unknown fact that Blacus paganvs danced in the air in companies, two similar instances have come under Observation. (1) In the New Forest on 27 June 1936 I saw at 2 p.m. many males of B. hastatus„ Hai., dancing thus together above an open railing in a dry part of Matley Bog. (2) In Fritton Marsh, squelchy but traversable, where rough hay had been carted, three distinct congregations of small flies were dancing like gnats six feet a b o ^ the ground,

288

OBSERVATIONS.

in a similar manner, at six p.m. on 8 August 1937. A sweep of the net through the first Company, consisting of about a hundred individuals, showed them all to be males of Blacus ruficornis, Nees ; through the second Company revealed only the Diptera Lonchoptera trilineata, Zett. ; and through the third again showed the same Blacus alone. I was not previously aware that Lonchopteridse was thus social; nor had I seen Chorisops tibialis, Mg., gregarious (as recorded by Yerrall at v, p. 216 ; Entom. 1937, p. 175) tili 1 met them in the hedge-sheltered corner of a meadow at Thirsk in Yorks on 19 July last. In the present case of B. ruficornis, this is the first occasion of such companies hovering with no definite object, such as a tea-table or fencing, immediately beneath t h e m . — C L A U D E MORLEY. ANOTHER ANOSIA PLEXIPPUS, L. (Trans, ii, 104).—The Monarch Butterfly, that my mother and 1 observed at noon on 6 August last, was Aying over our lawn at Rushmere Hall near Ipswich when first noticed. Realising that it was a species I had never seen before, I gave chase and it soon alighted on some Cupressus marcrocarpa bushes for a few seconds. After a very short rest the Butterfly flew away towards the north-west, i.e. Westerfeld.

I am fairly well acquainted with our commoner butterflies, having collected them some years ago : at first I thought it, while the wings were closed, a freakish Vanessa cardui, L., but when they opened for a brief second I saw the beautiful chestnut coloration, and realised it must be something quite different.

So I looked it up in Kirby's European Butterflies and South's little book, where I found it corresponded with the descriptions of the Monarch and the coloured plate appeared identical. Ipswich Museum has no specimen ; but M r Clement Chevallier possesses several of the Danaiid family in the collection he made abroad, and those of Danaus Chrvsippus are very similar to the Butterfly I had seen, so I feel quite convinced that the latter was Anosia plexippus.—RACHEL M. KING ; Rushmere, 1 September. [This nearctic immigrant is too distinctive to be confused with any of our native species. Cf. Entom. 1935, p. 269.—C.H.S.V.] CAMBERWELL BEAUTY AT BRAISEWORTH.—Is the Butterfly Vanessa Antiopa, Linn. ? I can't think ot anything eise, and have never seen it before. It flew off when I had finished •sketching it, right up into the air stroncjly, and disappeared among the tops of some large oaks. At first it was basking in the bright sunshine at about midday on 25 August, with its wings which were about three inches across fully expanded, enabling me to sketch them, on a bare patch of ground just inside the gateway of a meadow about two hundred yards from my house and garden here. I have always heard the species is rarely seen, so this was a lucky chance. Magpies are now here in great numbers ; in fact, there are too many of both them and Taivny Owls, though much

\

OBSERVATIONS.

289

fewer Little Owls.—HENNIKER, Braiseworth, near E y e ; 6 September. [The enclosed drawing leaves no doubt respecting the Butterfly's identity and the expanse suggests a male, for Meyrick's minimum is 76mm. T h e 25th was a sultry day,'with a good deal of east in the southerly breeze, but little sunshine.

A specimen was reported in a Norfolk newspaper on 11 September as having been Seen at Salthouse that very day !—Ed.] LARGE TORTOISESHELL BITTTERFLIES.—Little observed during 1937. Several V. polyckloros were seen at Barking during early August, and still Aying there on 1 Ith. V. Atalanta is rare all over Suffolk this autumn (E. W. PLATTEN).—No less than three hundred specimens \>ere bred from caterpillars that fed on Cherry (Prunus Cerasus, L.) in his garden at Fornham near Bury St. Edmunds in June 1 9 0 8 by Mr. Walton Burrell.—THE REVD' J . E . NURSE, v . v . , J u n e

1937.

INFLUX OF COMMA BUITERFLIES.— It must be quite undoubted that the stiff westerlv wind of 18-20 September is responsible for the remarkable numbers of Vanessa C-album, L., which appeared in Suffolk for at least the subsequent week • and the fact that none are reported on any of those three davs pretty surely indicates a considerable distanc; of volition eastwards. T h e ones observed must be no more than a tithe of those that occurred all over our Countv during that period On 21 st one in garder. at Sibton and one in garden at Mildenhall (COL. HAWLEY), also two in mv Ipswich garden during 21-24tb (Mr. R. Catchpole 42 Constable-road). On 22nd a fine specimen, evidently freshly emerged, was captured on Aster amellus, var. Georgius-rex, in my garden in the midst of Needham Market (E. W. PLATTEN) One near Ipswich acrodrome on 23rd (teste Dr. Whittingham)!

On 24th one on Saxifrage flower about 1 p.m. in Baylham garden, where another had been taken some two years ago (Miss Oveyj to-day there are two in my garden at Ballingdon Hall in Sudbury lookmg as if they had just emerged (C. F. D. SPERLNG). On ^5th one at Herringfleet, near St. Olaves (J. L. MOORE) 26th two, in his Long Melford garden at ' Aster King George ' were f e n b y Mr. G. S. Allen; one at Fiatford in East Bergholt on Michaslmas Daisy, where had been one in 1936 (LEONARD KICHARDSON). 27th one captured in mv garden at Rushmere near Ipsw l c h (Miss T . CHEVALLIER). 28th one seen in my garden at Rushmere Hall (Miss KING). Mr. Platten reported another on ivy blossom at Needham, one seen at Coddenham, two at ötowmarket and one in Shrubland Park, at the end of September • a score in as many days. In October, D R . WHITTINGHAM saw one or two in his Ipswich garden on 2nd and 5th ; Mr. Frank a u n o t l c e d t w o o n Michjelmas-daisy flowers at Barton Mills ° ? K \ t h ' w h e r e one had beeen observed last year (EADTimes, ^th).

It may interest our Members to know that 1 caught

290

OBSERVATIONS.

a Comma at Rushmere near I pswich on 11 October, which seems very late in the season for butterflies (CLEMENT CHEVALLIER, 13 Oct.). Two specimens were Aying about Asters in my Needham garden in briJliant sunshine on 17th, one in nice condition but the other has been much worn and was liberated ; the next day Mr. Swain took two here with his fingers as they sat gorged on a bush of Ivy blossom, and these T have set for the local school museum. Finally, so late as 20th, three more examples were observed in this town (E. W. PLATTEN). The majoritv will be noted to have occurred in Valleys, those about Ipswich mounting to high ground, doubtless by following flower-gardens. High Suffoik was not patronised.

COLIAS EDUSA, L . , EVANESCENT IN 1937.—My younger son saw a Clouded Yellow Butterfly at Mardesham to-dav, writes our Member GEOFFREY M. FRENCH on 23 September last; and, indeed, the species seems to have appeared nowhere eise in Suffolk this autumn. Throughout a tour of southern England in early September M R . BURTON observed one in Kent and one in Cornwall! He adds : I saw hardly any Butterflies at all and Moths were very scarce everywhere ; so I had to work hard for the few I got, which included some Xanthomista, Hispidus and Xerampelina, with larvae of Barretti. MR. R. S. GIRLING observed a single Edusa in his Wrentham garden late last May (v.v. 27 September).

CONVOLVULUS HAWK-MOTHS.—Only two examples of Sphinx convolvuli, L., have been noted by our Members this year, both in Southwold. A very worn one was attracted to light at the Pier on 2 September (Baker) ; and the other discovered in good condition sitting on a paling in Hotson-road on 18th of that month (in coli. Collings). Mrs. Hawley took a flne pair of S. ligustri, L., at Brandon in early July.

Sphinxpinastri, L., AT ALDEBURGH.—Members may be interested to hear that one of our boys has just caught a perfect Pine-hawk Moth ; he has presented it to the School Museum, and it has been carefully set by my son. As far as I know none has been taken for some years [but cf. page 191, supra.—Ed.] ; though I remember Dr Hele of Aldeburgh showing me, when 1 was a boy, some that he had reared from eggs.—MAURICE E. W I L K I N S O N , Aldeburgh Lodge School; 25 July 1937.

CLEARWINGED MOTHS.—The interest that has always attached to our Clearwings, ' the most elegant, graceful and fairy-like of all British Moths,' on account of their superficial analogy to the Hawks and elusive mimicry of ' gnats, bees, wasps and other insects ' (to a Hymenopterist, most amusingly inferred specifically by the old Lepidopterists !) leaves no doubt that Suffolk contains no undetected kinds. None have been added to our List since

OBSERVATIONS.

291

1890, though all then known have been retaken. Of the fifteen in Britain, we possess eight; and no valid reason exists why three more should not occur. But four certainly will not turn up, for (1) JEgeria chrysidifortnis, first found in Britain by Francillon (Haworth, 1803), is confined to the coast of Kent and Sussex, where it is local and booms along in Tune like a Burnet between 9 and 11 a.m. and 3 and 4 p.m. (fig. Ent. Ann. 1856), though the larva feeds for two years in the roots of nothing rarer than Rumex acetosa and acetosella. (2) JE. flaviventris has been known as British only about a decade, as local at midsummer in Devon and Hants ; larva during winter in slight swellings in twigs of Salix cuprea. (3) IE. musciformis is litoral on both sides of the Irish Sea from Cornwall to M u l l ; larva feeding for two years in stocks of Thrift. (4) JE. scoliiformis is also purely western, scattered locally from north Wales (new to Britain : Zool. 1856' p. 4814) and Stafford to Sutherland (fig. Ent. Ann. 1857) ; larva feeding, like our culiciformis, beneath bark of felled birch-stools, usually for two years.—The other three are not of impossible occurrence in Suffolk: (5) JE. andreniformis is merely rare,extending from Kent to Wiks (Ent. Wk. Int. 1857, p. 139), Hereford and Leicester (Matthews), sometimes Aying at n i g h t ; larva in stems of both Dogwood and Viburnum Latana, also recorded on flowers of Privet. (6) JE. spheciformis is merely local to as far north as York and flies by day, hovering over flowers, and in evenings ; larva lives usually two years and gnaws a ten-inch gallery up centre of young sucker where old Alders have been felled, and then in May pupates just inside the lateral bark. (7) Pcaanthrene tahaniformis is rare and known in only Essex, Surrey and Hants ; larva in roots or stem of Ash, Aspen and black Poplar, lives two years, and pupates during May just below bark.

BRECK MOTHS.—There seem to be very few interesting Lepidoptera of any kind on the wing : M r Burton and 1 tried Boyton and Stavertcn, but got utterly nothing. So Mrs. Hawley and I came to Brandon, arriving on the afternoon of 3 July in a howling gale though high temperature ; 4th was cold and rather cloudy ; 5th had a few gleams of sun after lunch, which gave us a nice fresh half-dozen Dipsacea ; to-dav is dark and wet. T h e best thing is a fine Dominula, taken on Wangford Heath to-day, just before rain. One night I got a lot of Albicolon, but none there the following night; and one H. nana, Rott. T h e commonest moth is Valligera, which swarms, and amongst them was one fine Reticulata, Vill. A curious specimen of Carpophaga turned up last night, much darker than usual and far darker than any m my series of twenty. Trabealis is very plentiful and Rubiginata abundant; Gnseata is scarce and nearly over; and only two Cucullata have turned up, near the Tuddenham-road.—COL. BROUGHTON H A W L E Y ; Brandon, 6 July.

292

OBSERVATIONS.

A N ABNORMAL Hadena sordida, BKH.—I captured at dusk on the Yarmouth south denes, close to the sea, on 6 June 1933 an extremelv uninteresting-looking Noctuid moth, which Ccl. Hawlev and our Hon. Secretary guessed to be H. sordida and in October 1936 was sent, in case it turned out to be something reallv good, by the latter to our Member Mr. A. R. Hayward, who was equally puzzled by it. Several of the leading Lepidopterists, including the Revd. J. W. Metcalfe, examined it in December but would pronounce no determination without an examination of the genitalia. Eventually it was passed on to M r Parkinson Curtis of Bournemouth, who has a broad knowledge of allied Continental forms. He was " not at all satisfied about its pedigree : I should think father was H. rurea and mother H. sordida, but short of a genital examination I can say only that it would be less unhappily placed over the label sordida than any other. As a fact, it is nearer cerivana, Smith, than any other species of the genus I know, but that one never occurred in Britain and never will unless it be carried here.

The points in favour of sordida are : the underside of forewing which is strongly against any other determination, the position and shape and contour of the orbicular Stigma, and the way the reniform is formed and the colour therein distributed ; the points in favour of rurea are : the basal streak, that below the vein one, the construction of the claviform, the dorsal streak, the course of postmedial, the general contour of wing, and the tegulae. The crenulation and terminal line suit neither species ; but, many as are the points favouring rurea, they are not so strong as those for sordida." Eventually the genitalia were examined bv him and found (in lit. 28 Feb. 1937) to be " not quite normal: lodix rather large, vaginal duct displaced to left, but bursa normal, so thought it at first a gynandromorph. Hayward had already softened 9th and lOth segments with naptha but, as I could make out both an ovipoistor and a pair of valves, 1 was very puzzled. However, potash enabled me to separate them without producing any lessing of the female abdomen ; and I am satisfied the adhesion of the entire male armature was just one of Life's little tragedies : I have seen the same thing happen in the case of Eu.xoa vestigialis, Rott. An additional reason is to be found in the fact that the vescia is fully extended and the cornutus erected, showing that withdrawal had for some reason been impossible : looking at the unusually heavily chitinized genital slot and very massive os bursa one would not be surprised if this w e r e a frequent occurrence in H. sordida ; but it is not usual in general Lepidoptera according to my own experience, of but little over 1000 mounts : I have seen only one other case, viz. the above vestigialis and am satisfied that the male was seized by Khabidura riparia and, in the struggle, the catastrophe happened."—C. G. D O U G H T Y .

OBSERVATIONS.

293

L E P I D O P T E R A AT B E C C L E S . - A specimen of Lbnenitis sibylla Linn was seen m my garden in the midst of this town on 3rd and I was given a Pavonia larva of noble proportions. Some weeks ago Porcelluswas captured in the same garden [and its larva at Brandon m J u l y . - E d . ] . I have reared a dozen Erosaria, which have begun to emerge ; and a friend has just brought in some Verbasa caterpillars.-E. T . G O L D S M I T H ; Beccles, 4 Aug. M O T H S AT N E E D H A M MARKET.—No Fidonia limbaria Fab uere to be met at its former locality this spring, and I fear its reappearance is now hopeless. A fully fed larva of Staurobus fagi L„ was beaten from oak in Oak-hill Wood at B a r W on ? ü August. It is interesting to note how retarded moths are in their emergence this autumn ; manv July species were still Aying in good condition at the end of August. I was surprised to take P. palpina, L. and a Ruby Tiger, P. fuli?inosa, L „ so late as 25 August: never seen here before. At light also F.. plamata L a n d m a l e s only of E. popularis, Fab., have been frequent."

1 counted ten D. lubncipeda larvae feeding on 22 September a cold night, on ivy blossom here, whereat were both P. semibrunnea Hw„ of which two have occurred before, and a worn M oxyacomthce, L „ of the purely British var. capucina, Mill., on Uctober ; a second, and very dark, capucina was at ivy on l l t h • and O. Iota, Clk., then fairly common. The Revd T h ' Hocking s collection, in Ipswich Museum, includes o n l y ' t w o worn semibrunnea and no Suffolk capucina : the whole has kept well and is as perfeet as when he presented it fort/ vears aeo excepting the mevitable discolcuration of drawer-paper There 1 also saw last season's magnificent Deilephila Nerii, L. (Trans ui, 191). D. elpenor larva- have been very common this year wuh imagines of Plasia festucce, L. and chrysitis, L„ at Epilobium and Loosestnfe flowers. H. miata, L„ are Coming to l i g h t . - E .

W. P L A T T E N , Needham M a r k e t ; 1 2 October.

O U R G E N I A L O C T O B E R I N 1 9 3 7 , - T h e first three weeks were almost rainless ; the weather was mild, in spite of the fact that defici ent thcr e w e r e eLT, T ' i n f a c t > under thirty hours l r recorded during the first fourteen days, of which exiguous total more than half occurred on 2nd and 4th. On 22nd the

u P R F I P I T A T ; ° N w a s r e c ° r d e d every day ^ e ^ d s except 30th, with a heavy fall on 22nd. In spite of this, rainfall tor the month is substantially below the average, as also is sunshine i emperatures ranged high, and no frost was recorded in the screen Except on one or two days, winds have been very lieht v n l n f m t e ' W k h a g " ? d d e a l o f f °g- especiallyinthemomings; vivid Iightning was visible about six p.m. on 25th ( F . L . B L A N D ) Micro that is new t0 m 7nl //aVeJu un an°ther e Chimbachephry ganelLa, Hb. three specimens in Wangford Wood on 28 October-and am going again this 3Ist afternoon to complete my series if I am : R R

R

, R

K E

an

294

OBSERVATIONS.

lucky. I have managed to take Polia semibrunnea, Hw., on ivy blossom near Southwold with the aid of Mr. Baker (JACK GODDARD).—We secured three specimens on 12th October at one ivied tree near Reydon Hall (Miss Agnes Strickland's old home), and on 8th Mr. Burton and I found two others in the same vicinity ; but, curiously, I have had no luck when out alone, beating for it. Eucestia spartiata, Fusl., came indoora here at Reydon on 2 November and a local Eriogaster populi, L., was given me by a neighbour last winter (GEORGE J . BAKER ; 12 November).—Have not done much with moths since October, when I got eleven P. semibrunnea and I believe about twenty specimens were taken between us. Brachyonycha Sphinx, Hufn.. has been very common, in contrast to most Lepidoptera, over forty examples turning up at Sotterly. I took one Hydriomena fluviata, Hüb., on 11 November sitting on my bedroom ceiling here, where it had been presumably attracted by light: it is a species which I have not previously captured (P. J. BURTON, Lowestoft; 12 November).—A perfect male and two female H. fluviata flew in, amid myriads of O. brumata, L., at an upstairs light that had been placed to attract B. Sphinx, the males alone of which have been abundant throughout October and show nice varieties, at Church Farm inSibton on the 6-7 November, just before the frosty period put an end to their activities.

I believe the spring brood flies over from the Continent and their progeny feed up comfortably in our genial summer ; but that this resulting autumn brood is cut off by frost, which here feil whitely on 13th, so that few or none are able to satisfactorilv hibernate (COLONEL HAWLEY). [The Revd. J. Hellins of Exeter allows (EMM. vii, 279 and Ent. Wk. Intell. iv, 188) the larvas of H. fluviata to be greatly influenced by temperature, so one may expect the imagines are similarly affected ; but that the species, which occurs at both light and ivy-blossom usually in marshes, does sometimes hibernate in at least south Britain is proved by the female's capture at sugar in I. Wight on 1 January (I.e. vii, 52).—Ed.] M O T H N E W TO S U F F O L K . — O u r Member, Mr. Mitton, was so fortunate as to capture a female of the Pyraustid Margaronia unionalis, Hüb., on a street lamp in Acton Road, south Lowestoft, at 10.30 on the night of 28 October when the wind was from the north-east, though further inland it had been southerly all day.

The speeimen is in perfect condition, rendered most distinetive by its prismatic-white wings with dark costal streak, and has been generously added to my collection by the captor. The species is a mere immigrant to the south English coast from the Mediterranean region ; elsewhere in Britain only a single speeimen has been found, sitting on a grass-stalk on Yarmouth sand-hills on 15 June 1880 by Mrs. Wheeler (Tr. Norf. Nat. Soc. iii, 687).

— J A C K GODDRAD ; 2 9 October.

[There is said to be no fixed

OBSERVATIONS.

295

period of perfection, but a succession of broods from May to October; and the larva, unnoticed by Meyrick, is suggested by Mernn (Lep. Cal. 1875, p. 52) to be a privet-feeder, which points would account for the two EAnglians' urban occurrence and their diverse dates, if home-grown.—Ed.] SUFFOLK'S

1506th M O T H .

On 10 November last a moth was

° M ^ ™ , ° - b o x from a lighted window in Needham Market and, two days later, given me dead.

Evidently it had been attracted to light; and I was greatly astonished to recogmse it as a male of Ptilophora plumwera, Esp because that species has been hitherto believed to have no föoting throughout East Anglia T h e very strongly bipectinate antenn long-haired head and body, and thinly scaled wings are characteristic ; the last are rufescent brown with the veins very distinct andinfuscatered, the front ones have indefinte yellowish markings and the hind ones are strongly hirsute internally.

I have compared the specimen with the Hocking Collection in Ipswich Museum, and find its Identification correct.—E W PLATTEN 17 November 1937. [This rare and local Prominent was supposei to be confined in Bntam to south-west England, ranging only from Hants to Devon, Gloster and Bucks, but to be ffinct v commonest on the chalk of Bucks. It was' termed P v a r k K 2

by Stephens who took it within 25 miles of London (so probably in Bucks) before 1829. From no County even remotely abutting upon Suffolk is it recorded.

T h e Gipping ^ a £ has been continuously worked by Lepidopterists since Kirby became cura e of Barham in 1 7 8 2 ; Mr. Henry Lingwood of r

U g

y

1 nt

3

m a t c h

S t ^ T a S 3 S r e a t c o " c c t o r for many years before his c. m u death: yet none appears so oculatissimus as Mr. Platten The geologica map of Suffolk shows an outcrop of C h S k UC ^ e e t a o m Statl0n" In S N S 11937, 9 3 7 ' "this I t * d species °isf SNo. Memoire öJNb. 569a at page 96.—Ed.]

Phalonia (Eupa-cilia) roseana, HAW.—One could not compife a very long hst of the generally common English Moths thaTare S r i b u t r £ S u f f 0 , k ; T b u t a m o n S t t a S the m t t b r o a S distnbuted, right up to Lancs., was the present Tortricid J u n e t0 August TelT " T T ! ? V ^ u ^ among leazle, in the seed-heads of which common plant the l a r v ! eed in mines from August to the following M a / ' I h a V e often found he mines m spring, running through the points of the head one after another, but I fancy the l a r v ! must leave the heads D r m äa rr t et et ll i : Pm"e r t e r T n ^ ^ =1 ^ ^ e specks,' jT ! f - Upon numerous occasions I have brouehV Ä l o w f h e a d S i n , a U t U m n , ' a n d S U p p 0 S e d t h e M o ^ f s absence were kent rT the too artificial state in which they were kept dunng the Winter. So last year 1 made a great effort bore home a mass of some two hundred such heads from a coploJa

296

OBSERVATIONS.

supply in Monks-park Wood towards the end of May, when the larvae should have already pupated: result, one Endothenia gentianana, H b . ! (Since this was written larvae have been found at O l d Newton.)—CLAUDE MORLEY.

T w o COAST MICROS.—I do not think I have very much to report entomologically this autumn. I found larvas of Epischnia Farrella, Curt., to be fairly abundant at Bawsdey in early September; and in late October I was distinctly pleased to discover those of Phalonia maritimana, Guen.

I do not know if the latter has been recorded for Suffolk [No. 1503, in the 1937 Memoir. An Eryngium-fceder in only Essex and Kent.

—Ed.] ; but the Bishop has beaten me, for he bred one or two this year, from larvae which I believe he found in this County — A. P. WALLER, Waldringfield ; 20 November.

A TRIALATE Eriogaster populi, L.—Both sexes of this Moth have flown by no means uncommonly to light in Needham Market during November ; and on 27th I secured a freak-specimen of the male. I observed it hovering at light in a peculiar and quite unusual manner, edgeways, like a plane banking. Upon catching it, I find there to be but a single hindwing, for the dosest scrutiny with a good lens reveals no trace whatever of the right one. I have retained this example of structural monstrosity.—E. W. PLATTEN. [For a monstrosity of Triphcena pronuba, L., cf. Trans, i, 232.—Ed.] [ N O T A BENE. Other 1937 Moths are entered in " T h e Lepidoptera of Suffolk," lssued by the Society with these Transactions.—Ed.] LIFE'S LITTLE DISAPPOINTMENTS !—While sweeping over the sun-baked ' High Field,' famed home of Panagsus, near the Brandon water-works on 24 July last, I happened to notice some rotting sacks stuffed with a most loathsome mass of rabbit-offal, throvvn for manure upon the edge of a sandv field that was Breck tili first ploughed in 1910 : with almost 'whirlwind results still ! Für seemed the predominant feature of the offal and recalled to mind the spot, not a half-mile due north, which in 1896 the Rev. E. N. Bloomfield pointed out to me as that •where the first British capture of the "little Moth Tinea imella, Hb., was made fifty years before by Joe Dunning, grantee of the Ent. Soc. London's earlier charter. Top-hats and " seals'skins " were then the vogue, into which the innumerable Breck rabbits' skins were transformed at Brandon ; and in those skins lived T. imella, that I have never taken. Here, these sacks contained its very pabulum. So, swathing my nicer susceptibilities in a cloud of tobacco-smoke, 1 attacked the reeking sacks. Beetles were abundant: Aleochara nitida, Gr., Homalota vicina, Ste., Lithocharis ochracea, Gr., Hister \2-striatus, Sch. with many Carcinops 12-striat.us, Ste. (cf. our Proc. ii, p. xcviii) and among

OBSERVATIONS.

297

the bones Necrobia violacea, L., one bearing a large red Gamasid mite. T h e commonest insect was the hotbed Bug Piesostethus galactinus, Fieb., though both Heterogaster Urtica, Fab. and Sehirus bicolor, L., were beneath adjacent sacking. But not a Moth or its larva appeared anywhere. Noonday is not, however, the best period to search for so crepuscular a flyer as the Tineid ; so, an hour before dusk on both the two next nights, I visited those sacks again. T h e small Flies, Lauxania cylindricornis, Fab. and Piophila latipes, Mg., were ovipositing, many Scatophaga; and Limnobiids flving round, but among the für was onlv Pyralis farinalis, L. Till too dark to see, I watched (upon the windward side !) those sacks : the sole Tineid moving near them was the Yarrow-feeding Coleophora argentula, ZI. So hopes were dashed, and füll night feil.—CLAUDE MORI.EY. CRANF-FLIES' DAMAGE.—Innumerable Leather-jackets [larva; of Tipiula oleracea, L.] have attacked mv lawn in Beccles this year to such an extent that the grass has turned brown and I much fear the roots of the whole are destroyed. A large Beetle [Carabus violaceus, L.] has been detected devouring the g r u b s ; but Starlings may save the Situation, as thev have been greedilv pecking up both the Leather-jackets and beetles.—WILLIAM FOWLER ; 28 August 1937.

BREAD UPON THE WATERS.—On 2 2 January 1898 I took, beneath bark of a rotten poplar at Tattingstone, several larvec of a Gnat. On 10 May following one male and one female Gnat, of the genus Sciara, emerged from the puparia resulting from those larvse. Sciara is a genus whose species no one in Britain has hitherto been able to n a m e : on 24 November 1919 Dr. Assistant Edwards of the British Museum kept the above male for the National Collection ; and, at long length, on 19 March 1937 he names it Sciara glabra, Mg. T h e female 1 have not yet succeeded in discovering among my hundreds of unnanied iScwra-specimens.

A F L Y N E W TO S U F F O L K . — I was poring on the Bee that bumbles by one very hot afternoon, as I sat in a gravel-pit on the Breck above Brandon on 24 Julv last, when I instinctively jumped at a couple of curious insects that came chasing each other, like some dark Burnet-moths, in the sun a couple of feet above the rough herbage. In my net was the astonishing Tachinid-fly Echinomvia tessellata, Fab., which has occurred to me during the last forty years upon but one occasion, on 2 August 1927 when a dozen specimens were Aying together about a grassy drive at Stubby in the New Forest.

T h e extent of its actual rarity in Britain seems unrecorded : perhaps Mr. Wainwright will teil us ? Like its conspicuous relative, the large black E. grossa, L., which our Member Dr. Blair has bred on 25 June 1906 from its smooth

298

OBSERVATIONS.

and pyriform dark red puparium, enclosed in the dead and rotten chrysalis of Eriogaster rubi, L., at Forres, N.B., the present species is surely parasitic upon one or more of our larger Moths; but I am not aware that even the common E.fera, L., has yet been reared. With us E. fera has been taken at Barton Mills, Southwold, Shrubland Park and Bentley, as well as West Runton, Horsford and Alder Fen, since 1915 (Tr. Norf. Nat. Soc., Suppl. p. 102); and E. arossa at Caldecot Hall in Fritton in 1924 and Barton Mills in 1 9 2 7 , when it abounded in the New Forest.—CLAUDE M O R L E Y .

Machiiis maritimus, L E A C H . — A further specimen of this Thysanuran (supra, p. 96) was found by me on Gorleston pier on 19 May last. On the night of 20 October our late Member, Mr. E. A. Ellis of the Norwich Castle Museum, was searching the breakwater by the pier with a light, and found numerous specimens running over its vertical concrete face.—C. G. D O U G H T Y ; 2 8 October.

How STONE-FLIES WALK.—In the marshes to the east of Blvthburgh Wood on 23 April last, 1 saw a Neifiouya sitting contentedly upon the water of a ditch, evidently fallen from the smallleaved Alder above it. To ascertain its species I raised it upon my net-shaft and found it to be N. inconspicua, Pict. (Trans, i, 186).

I lowered it gently back upon the shaft and found it cling to the water's surface-film, rather than be submerged, and there it continued to sit entirely unsupported and quite at home; so I disturbed it further, whereupon it walked slowly but freely upon its tarsi, holding its wings high to keep then dry, tili it attained a Duckweed-leaf upon which it sat for a minute or so. Then it stretched up to an Alder-twig growing out of the water, and ascended it. That members of this genus possessed the aptitude to walk upon water, like Gerris though more slowly, was new in my experience.

S N A I L S ATTRACTED TO LIGHT.—Another specimen of the small Snail, Balea perversa, Linn., was found to have been influenced by light on 13 February last, within three yards of that at Trans, iii, p. 99. No external lantern has been hung out this winter ; and upon the present occasion this individual sat quiescently on the extreme edge of a painted wooden door, in which is a glass panel, with just its head when extruded exteoding over the glass.

Its recurrence suggests that this species in particular is susceptible to light, for it is by no means among our most frequent ones.— CLAUDE

MORLEY.

A FREAK BIVALVE.—On 8 January last, noticing some coal had been washed up on Gorlestcn beach, I went down to see what Shells had been washed up with i t ; and found a curious misshapen Mactra stultorum, L., with a gape like that of a Pholas on its posterior margin. This gape was | of an inch long by -f wide

OBSERVATIONS.

299 at its vvidest part, which was above the middle ; and the gape tapered off to a point below, in a long graceful curve. The two valves were strictly symmctrical. Such a gape must have led to a modification of the animal, especialy of the mantle : but 1 am no malacologist. In the footnote at our Trans, ii, 232, the word ' coal' has, by mistake, been misprinted Coral.

ANOTHER SQUID.—A Cephalopod, found alive on Hopton beach on Christmas Eve 1936, after being killed proved to measure three feet in length and weigh seven pounds. Its accompanying photo in the local Daily Paper looks like a specimen of Ommastrephes todarus, Chiaje (Trans. 1934, p. 285, flg.). I have not run across its captor yet.—C. G. DOUGHTY ; Gorleston ; 2 Feb. 1937.

SOME LOWESTOFT FISH.—A seventeen-inches long Clupea alosa, Linn., weighing a pound and ten ounces, was hooked in Lowestoft harbour on 18 August: compare Trans, ii, p. 121.

Also I saw another small example of this Allis-shad captured in the vacht-basin on 26 September ; and the captor told me that he had taken in all about eight this season at the same spot, as well as a similar number last year.—Considerable breakers battered a 12J feet specimen of the Basking Shark, Selache maxima, Cuv., against the jagged debris of a concrete breakwater on Lowestoft beach during 21 September last, and eventually cast lt, still alive, upcn the north beach where it was hauled ashore (F C. COOK, 27 Sept.).—Three lads landed a Tope, Galeus vulgaris, Flem., thought to be the largest ever caught on the east coast, while they were fishing for bait off Pakefield on 29 September.

It became entangled in the net slung outboard from their boat, weighed 3± cwt. and was 5J feet in length, which is longer than those enumerated at Trans, ii, 126.

MORE STONE LOACHES.—Specimens of Nemachilus barbatulus, Linn., were very common beneath stones in the Wang River just where the road crosses it, slightly north-east of Sotherton church, on 25 August last.—R. T. BAKER, Reydon.

Osmerus eperlanus, LINN. (Trans, ii, 119).—A friend of mine here has just returned from a cruise on the Broads and informs me that, whenfishingin the River Ant just above Ludham Bridge on 9 October, he landed two Smelts, besides several sorts of the usual freshwater fish. This appears a curious date for these fish to be twenty miles from the sea. They would have to traverse ouffolk waters before reaching the above Norfolk river —C G DOUGHTY ; Gorleston, 18 October.

LARGER FISH.—Some years ago, I reported to the Society the ever increasing number of Sharks, Tunnv-fish and Giant Squids that were frequenting home waters in preference to their own 1.1 rans. ii, 60], I suggested that a possible cause for the denizens

300

OBSERVATIONS.

of other waters being among us was that the Gulf Stream had altered in the set of its current, and that the recent earthquake, most pronounced near the Dogger Bank, might have contributed by affecting ground food. I realised at its inception that this matter would become a national one ; and I deeply regret that it has now become so, as regards the nation's food supply. I see in the Press that complaints reach our experts from almost all rivers about the shortage of Salmon, which renders the mcre regrettable our paucity of Herrings, &c. Sharks and Tunnies soon play havoc with a shoal of Herrings or Mackvrels ; and i see Press accounts of Sharks not only consumin. the latter, but attacking the boats as is reported on the Clyde. The three decomposed carcases of ' monsters,' stranded some time ago at Ushant, caused general bewilderment, but not to tbose who know that the flotsam of the Gulf Stream would ultimately land in that distriet by natural course of the current. As a Naturalist I specialise in Pisces and Palasontology, and reahse we have a vast field to work upon.—JOHN C. HERRINGTON ; Reydon, 2.1 Sept.

A LARGE ESOX lucius, L I N N . — M r . R. H . Jacobs of 3 5 Burreil Road, Ipswich, water bailiff to Gipping Angling and Preservation Society, fishing in the river Gipping near the Bramford works football-ground on 30 October last, hooked and landed a Pike weighing sixteen pounds (Local Daily Paper).—Though far from maximum weight, this Ipswich Pike is sufficiently remarkable, especially after the river's pollution, to be perpetuated in our annals. The well-mounted specimen in Thetford Museum is of some ten pounds.—D.W.C. SIIFFOLK'S LARGESI Acipenser.—Ten men were needed to carry a great Sturgeon ashore at Lowesroft from the local steam trawler King Athelstan on 3 April last. The fish was in excellent condition, at once purchased, and later despatched to Grimsby in a railway-truck all to itself. lt was the finest and largest of of its kind ever landed at this port, and weighed no less than forty-eight stone=672 lbs. (Local Daily Paper, 5 April). [Our previous heaviest Suffolk Sturgeon seems to have been of sixteen stone (Trans, i, 73). Both the largest specimens known to Yarrell were Scots : he was aware of one of 203 lbs. and refers to Pennant's record (Brit. Zool. iii, 1812, p. 164) of another weighing 460 lbs. as the largest British example then claimed. Though brought into Lowestoft, the present monster cannot be claimed as truly Suffolcian, for our Hon. Secretary was told by Consolidated Fisheries there on 22 April that the trawlers had been work ing at the time off the mouth of the Elbe, some 300 miles outside British waters. I do not consider the species to be A. Sturio, L — W

D.

COLLINGS.]

REPTILES' EARLY EMERGENCE.—When I visited Hinderclay Fen on 26 March last, there was a bright sun up tili midday and, in spite of the early date and the fact that there was a bitter

OBSERVATIONS.

301

northerly wind with still some snow under the lee of hedges, I found four Vipers and one common Lizard sunning themselves!

An hour later the ground was covered with a fresh fall of about two inches of snow, and a perfect frosty winter's night ensued.

HENRY

ANDREWS.

OUR SNAKES—Perhaps other Members, besides myself, have wondered whether Vipers (Vipera berus, L. : Trans, ii, 217) are abroad at night. Bell in 1839 does not deal with the question ; Leighton's 1902 book I have never seen ; all, whom I have asked' could not teil me. In ' A Beast Book for the Pocket' by Edmund Sandars, published recently by Oxford University Press and dealing with British vertebrates other than birds and fishes, the daily life of Vipers is deseribed as " mainly nocturnal, beäting a chosen district in search of food. Spend the day in holes or under thick cover or sun-basking on a favourite spot, particularly after ram. Gather round fires at night."

I presume the last habit is for warmth, so the patient watcher by the moth-lamp need have no fears and they would not allow one to tread on them at night. T h e Smooth Snake and, of course, the Grass Snake are stated to be diurnal, but the former and the Slow Worm are said to feed chiefly in the evening.—C. G. D O U G H T Y .

M A R S H T O R T O I S E S . — I have just heard of the reappearance of Clemmys leprosa, Schw. (Trans, ii, 211) on Mr. Sherwood's farm in Blaxhall; I shall try to get hold of a specimen there to-morrow, and if obtainable will exhibit him at the October Meeting. I have just had ten days in east Yorkshire where the moorland Heather in füll bloom was a sight for the gods ; but Grouse are very scarce this season and all shooting is suspe'nded there.—CECIL S. L A S T ; 11 September.

S P R I N G I N W E S T E R N IRELAND.—This morning I have returned from a 450-miles expedition through Cläre and Galway, including its mountainous district and many lakes in Connemara, where were grand weather and practically no rain. Everywhere was beautiful and quite unspoiled country, showing very little hedgehackmg or railway-herbage destruction. Bird-life was most interesting and many of the less common Suffolk kinds seemed quite a b u n d a n t : Willow-wrens (Phvlloscopus trochilus, L) Magpies {Pica rustica, Scp.), Gold—and other—finches (Carduelis elegans, Ste., &c) were constantly in view, with Cuckoo and Stonechat; Ravens (Corvus corax, L.) frequented the rocks commonly ; but, per contra, very few House-sparrows or Swallows and no Martins were observed. The ' s h o o t i n g ' farmer, out to kill, is nearly non-existent: I met only one man carrying a gun, and heard but a Single shot throughout my journey. Insects seemed very unfamiliar, too : plenty of Fritillaries (Argynnis Euphrosyne, i-'-) and Wood Argus (Parage Mgeria, L.) were Aying among the

302

OBSERVATIONS.

t i m b e r ; I noted several Strange Beetles and Spiders, but my knowledge was inadequate to naming them. Above all the Flora was enthralling, of course, to me ; and I took numerous photographs.—FRANCIS SIMPSON, Ipswich ; 26 May. In April a Black-bird's nest was found at Elmswell containing nine eggs, which were all of uniform size and colour, doubtlessly the product of one bird. This is an extraordinarily laree b clutch.

THE Redstart seems to be almost a rare breeding visitor to the County, compared with its distribution of ten years ago.

Long Melford was once a favourite h a u n t ; but Mr. C. H . Row informs me the bird is never there seen now. I have similar reports from many other districts and should be glad to make an informal census during 1938. I shall be interested to hear from any Member who may observe Redstarts next season Kindly mention the district in which the bird was seen.

At Boyton this year I observed two Reed-Warblers' nests on the same group of reeds. The nests were only three inches apart, just sufficient room to allow the second pair an entry to the lower nest. A brood was reared in both nests.—C. S. LAST. WAXWINGS THIS SPRING.—My son saw three specimens of Ampelisgarrulus, L., in Felixstow to-day ; and I am looking forward to watching them myself.—GEOFFREY M. FRENCH ; 4 April 1937. [Our late Member, Mr. Bywater, also noticed several of these Birds within the bounds of Framlingham at the end of March.—Ed.] SWALLOW'S DECEASED RELATIVE.—In May a pair of Swallows built a nest on a shelf which 1 had nailed up in a corner of my verandah. I noticed nothing unusual tili 2 June, when about noon there suddenly appeared perched on the side of the nest something that looked like a sick Swallow. The hen paid no attention to it and, when she retürned after feeding, she nestled down behind it. T h e rest of that day and the following morning this bird, seemingly moribund, remained on the edge of the nest.

In the afternoon I fetched a ladder and waited tili the hen went off to feed ; then hurriedly mounted and brought down not a sick bird but a mummy.

Now, having been about all the morning of 2 June when this dummy swallow first appeared, I can certify that no human agent had been near the nest. The birds must have carried the corpse up themselves and posed it in a natural attitude on the side of the nest.

Was this a practical joke on their part ? My idea is that the hen had propped it up there as a screen. At any rate, she always used to sit with her head that way and, while the dummy was there, her head was completely shielded from Observation and draughts. I am almost sure that it is a bird which I had found

\

OBSERVATIONS.

303

left from 1936 in one of my outbuildings and had thrown out into the garden early this year. It is a cock swallow in adult plumage, completely mummified, and weighing less than J ounce.

Another interesting fact in connection with this nest was tliat on several occasions I saw the cock take his place on the eggs when the hen left to feed. He would hesitate for a few seconds, then creep in very gingerly, settle down and wait tili his mate returned.— H . M. BLAND, Falkenham. [Most authorities State that the cock Swallow never assists in incubation: here is definite proof to the contrary.—C.S.L.] FOSTER PARENT OF CUCKOO.—Whilst making observations at Foxhall this year, I found a common Whitethroats' nest in course of construction. Visiting the nest again one week later, I was very surprised to find it contained four Whitethroats' eggs and one Cuckoo's egg. The Whitethroat is, I think, a very rare foster parent of the Cuckoo and, according to the late Mr. Powell's list of foster parents (see Trans. 1933, 192), it has never been known in Suffolk as such [though weil known as such elsewhere.—C.B.T.].

NIDIFICATION OF Asio accipitrinus, PALL.—The Short-eared Owl used to nest regularlv in Suffolk fens up to about 1860 ; but, since then, nests have become very rare, barely more than an annual one being noted anywhere in the County. So I was glad to accept Capt. Scrivener's invitation on 1 April last to investigate a nest on his land in Sibton. On 3rd I found the spot to be three miles from the church, on the edge of a large wood, to which the discoverer guided me. T h e bird was sitting ; and we approached carefully to within five-and-twenty yards, whence we could see her distinctly. After we had watched for a couple of minutes, she rose from the nest and flew inte a neighbouring tree, where ivy hid her. T h e n I went to investigate the nest and found a hollow in the stump of a dead tree level with the ground and, on the rubbish of leaves and earth, three eggs that were rather smaller than and not so rounded as those of the Tawny Owl, and larger than the Long-eared Owl's. No doubt can exist respecting the identity of the bird, though this is a very early date for its eggs. We went up to the nest again on 4 May. Twö chicks were in i t ; and strewn round we saw three small Rats, a bit of Rabbit, many Mice of various species, also scraps of Thrushes and other birds. I hear one of the young disappeared soon after that dav and onlv one remained last week, circa 15 May. My wife took two photographs of the nest upon our recent visit.

C O L . BROUGHTON HAWLEY. [A queer site.—C.B.T.] OWLS' TRICKERY.—Some years ago we kept on losing very great numbers of small chickens and ducks from the broodinghens' coops in the farm-yard and, for want of any more definite

304

OBSERVATIONS.

assailant, put the damage down to rats. So one particular coop, that most frequently attacked, was wire-netted across the centre to keep the birds within its back half, and a rat-trap set amid the outer wooden bars.

T h e next morning the beak of a Brown Ozvl was found snapped into the trap. One of my men then told me that these Owls will alight upon a coop at night, and continue tapping it with the beak tili the unwonted noise frightens the chicks to desert the hen and run out, when they are at once slain by the marauder. I should much like to know if this remarkable stratagem is at all generally practised.—MRS. ROBERT LEMAN, Ashfield Lodge ; v.v., 21 November.

WHITE-TAILED EAGLE AT BRAMPTON.—My son, formerly a Member, reports to me that a Brampton farmer (Mr. Bens or Bains) has recently found various carcases of Rabbits, with their heads ripped off, upon his farm. So he set traps and caught an Eagle that is said to be Norwegian [breeds in Scandinavia and, tili recently, the Scots isles.—Ed.] and possess a wing-expanse of six feet. I considered I, though no Ornithologist, ought to report the occurrence.—JOHN C. HERRINGTON ; 27 November, 1937. [.Halceetus albicilla, L., exactly fits the above facts and is the sole Eagle likely to occur : cf. Kirkman and Jourdain 1930,. p. 145.—Ed.] CORMORANTS B R E D . — I understand from Mr. Manfred Hitchcock of Bures Mill that for the past few days an adult Cormorant, with two half-grown young ones, has been seen on his floodgate hole.

As apparently the young birds are unable to fly it looks as though these must have been reared close at hand, and I thought I would let you know as the circumstance appears to be very interesting.— CHARLES H .

ROW. [After deserting Suffolk for a Century, Cormorants began to nest here again in 1927: cf Ticehurst, page 246.]

Y O U N G G A N N E T AT W E Y B R E A D . — I was interested in the report of a stränge Bird, captured in a field at Weybread on 3 October and went to confirm it as Sula Bassana, Linn. This I was readily able to do, for the specimen was in immature plumage of blackish slate, beautifully spotted over the head, neck and back with tiny white dots, the ehest was pale with larger spots, the legs and webbed feet, beak and inside throat leaden blue ; the peculiar remains of of the tongue, so characteristic of this species, was obvious when the Bird opened its mouth. It was in good condition and plumage, and seemed contented to remain in the farmyard associating with poultry and being fed by the farmer with fish from adjacent ponds. I consider the Bird was blown inland, exhausted by the high east-north-east winds of the previous week ; having alighted upon terra firma it was unable to take wing again, as it so easily would from water.

However, it is now disappeared, so apparently flew after a time.—GEORGE BIRD ; 9 October,

OBSERVATIONS.

305

BITTERNS have undouhtedly nested here again this year, t h o u g h I myself have not seen their nest. M y Moth-collecting has h a d to bave a rest, though I pick u p something now and again by accident; and will send you later a list of what M o t h s I have taken here in the past.—HENRY L. HORSFALL ; Cliff House, Dunwich, 3 August.

SWANS ON OUR COAST.—As I was passing over Potters Bridge near Southwold on 22 July last, I saw a brood of seven Cygnets, one of which was white as his mother. I have never heard of a purely white Cygnet before. O n 24th I went again to see what these Swans were doing, and f o u n d t h e m to be nowhere near the bridge. So I walked, in knee-boots for the marshes there were very water-logged, thence to the sea ; and, in Easton Broad j u s t before the shingle-beach, I f o u n d a different brood of f o u r Cygnets, of which two were very nearly white and a third quite a pitman white. I called this afternoon u p o n your M e m b e r , Mr. Cook at Lowestoft, who t u r n e d u p literature and f o u n d similar cases reported for three years of the middle 1880's (R. S. GIRLING, T h e Bungalow, W r e n t h a m ; 27 July 1936).— An old, large, bedraggled and extremely surly Swan, with a nolime-tangere aspect, was leisurely patrolling the cliff-top at E a s t o n Bavents on 19 September 1936 (MRS. J. L . MOORE) [These birds have been present u p o n Easton Broad whenever we have passed it, during the last half-dozen years. ED.]—A few days. ago I noticed a Swan swimming, about two h u n d r e d yards f r o m the shore on a calm day, past Felixstow in the direction of Bawdsey. I presume it had come down f r o m the Gipping, as I have seen t h e m floating through Ipswich, but never observed one

swimming

in t h e sea before.—GEOFFREY M . FRENCH ; 2 2

November, 1937.

LATE NESTING.—During the 1937 breeding season Tree Sparrou's built in all my nine nest boxes. For the sake of the tits 1 repeatedly threw out their nests. Eight pairs refused to be dislodged ; b u t at last a pair of Great Tits oceupied one box a n d reared a brood. T h i s box has since been taken over by T r e e Sparrows like the other eight, most of which now contain second b r o o d s . — H . M . BLAND.

On 8 September, I f o u n d a Wood Piaeons' nest with unfledged voung in a tall hedge at Blaxhall.—R. H . SHERWOOD. T h e Wood Pigeon has been known to nest until N o v e m b e r — C . S . L .

VAMPIRES ?—'The other day I f o u n d in a field near this h o u s e the body of a Woodpigeon (Columba palumbus, L.) with the head and neck picked bare, and the body intact. I did not pay m u c h heed to i t ; b u t a day or two later, in the next field, I saw w h a t I thought was another Pigeon in j u s t the same State. However, it turned out not to be a Woodpigeon. F o r the whole of t h e

306

OBSERVATIONS.

back was grey, except that the outer wing-feathers and the tailfeathers were edged with black to a depth of some two inches, and the whole of the under parts were creamv-white : the tail long and fan-shaped, and the legs reddish W o u l d you teil me what the bird was, and who had eaten his head, leaving the skull ?— JOHN TILLEY, Felsham House ; 9 M a y 1937. [If it were so similar as to look like a Pigeon tili closely examined, one can think of nothing but the Stock-dove (Columba <enas, L.) : though doubtless Sir John knows this too well to pass it by. W h a t animal would prefer, in both cases, the scraggy neck to the succulent body we cannot i m a g i n e . — D . W . C . Probably a Rat's work.—C.B.T.] MARINE DUCK.—Mr. F r e n c h ' s curious Observation at page 209 reminds m e that I intended to ask M e m b e r s what was the species of the Duck-tribe that I saw swimming with Gulls at Felixstow the following September.

I t was thric.e as large as its associated Gulls, very dark brown with white markings on both wings and throat.—E. W . PLATTEN ; N e e d h a m Market, January, 1937. [Not enough data to say. T h r e e times as large as what species of gull ?—C.B.T.] ABNORMAL

TAIL

FEATHERS.—A

cock

Pheasant,

Phasianus

Colchicus, L., that had been shot at Dallinghoo last winter, was f o u n d to have twenty tail feathers instead of "the usual eighteen.— C . G . DOUGHTY ; O c t o b e r .

RmgedPlovers and Lapwings again nested this year on Martlesham H e a t h within a few feet of tracks made by aircraft u p o n landing.

It is surprising that these birds are not p e r t u r b e d by the imminent d a n g e r of being destroved by aeroplanes when landing, nor are they alarmed by t h e terrific noises during the period of incubation.— C.

S.

LAST.

SPRING

VISITORS

TO

THE

STOUR

MARSHES.—Some

very

interesting Birds have visited m y flooded marshes here at Fiatford in the course of the present spring :—In F e b r u a r y a couple of Avocets (Recurvirostra avocetta, L.) were observed on two davs, with seventeen W h i t e - f r o n t e d Geese (Anser albifrons, S c o p . ) ; during the first week of M a r c h came about a dozen Knots (Calidris canutus, L . ) ; in b o t h February and M a r c h Goldeneyed D u c k s (Glaucionetta clangula, L.), varied in n u m b e r from seventeen to forty ; t h e last week of March brought two certainly escaped, Canada Geese (Branta Canadensis, a u c t . ) ; and early April thirty to fifty Bar-tailed Godwits (Limosa lapponica, L.).

All these Birds were noted also by other observers and so can be authenticated, although I have never seen any of t h e m in the course of previous years. T h e i r presence, I suppose, was d u e to the flooded condition of the meadows for so unusually long a period.—

w

OBSERVATIONS. LEONARD RICHARDSON ;

30

April

307

1937.

[Avocets

are

very

rarely Seen on the East Coast, and although formerly breeding in small numbers, are now a non-breeding species in the British Isles.—C.S.L.] SPRING ARRIVALS—Although these lists were officially concluded this year, observations seem to continue just as p o p u l ä r as ever amongst our ornithological M e m b e r s and I append below records received f r o m H . M . Bland (B), Revd. R. B Caton (C) M i s s Teresa Chevallier (Ch), Miss R. M . King (K), A. Mayall (M), H . de M u s s e n d e n Leathes (M-L) and my own (L).

DATE

Wheatear Chiffchaff Sand Martin Swallow Wryneck Stone Curlew Yellow Wagtail Willow Warbier Blackcap Sandwich T e r n Cuckoo Tree Pipit Sedge Warbier Com. Whitethroat House Martin Nightingale

LOCAI-ITY

OBSERVERS

1936 5 & 8 March 24 & 27 M a r c h 20 & 23 April 12 April 5 April 3 March 1 April 26 M a r c h 21 M a r c h

1937 13 April 5 April 15 April 8 April 6 April 8 March 13 April 7 April 24 April

9 April 15 April 17 April 12 April 16 April 12 April

10 April Fakenham C. 28 April Fakenham c.

24 April Fakenham c.

20 April Bealings M 22 April Foxhall l. recorded by M r . H a m i l t o n Scott, on April lOth, the earliest record for 23 years.

20 April Ipswich M. 30 April Melton L. 21 April Foxhall L. 5 May Earl S o h a m M-L

Redstart 25 M a r c h Whinchat 29 April Less. Whitethroat 19 April Reed Warbier 30 A p r i l Wood Warbler 2 May Garden Warbler 5 May Mont. Harrier 5 March Com. Tern 20 April Less. Tern 25 April Sp. Flycatcher 2 May Nightjar 18 M a y Grasshopper Warbler 13 April R- B. Shirke 10 M a y Turtle Dove 6 May Swift | May

Rushmere Fakenham Kirton Euston Earl S o h a m Cavenham Fakenham Bealings Rushmere

K. C. B. C.

M-L L. C.

M. K.

»

21 April

Fakenham

C.

23 April 23 April 10 M a y

Thorpeness Thorpeness Rushmere

L. L.

16 M a y 6 May 27 April

Martlesham Newbourne Fakenham

L. Ch C.

»

. The above T a b l e is compiled to show the relative dates of arrival of spring migrants this County.

T h e assistance of the above observers is appreciated.—C.S.Last.

ln

St

[This one ends o u r Migration Lists.

TV. f. ~ T — f^ — —

*

Next year we have t o send M r . Last, at 146 ' " v aimtw v« » w u i ' i i . i^aai, dl ITU

• jomi Koad in Ipswich, the n u m b e r of each of the dozen species—MAGPIE, CORN W N T I N C , CROSSBILL, H A W F I N C H , GRASSHOPPER W A R B L E R , REDSTART, T R E E PIPIT, HRIKE, W H I N C H A T , LESSER S P O T T E D W O O D P E C K E R a n d C O R N C R A K E — t h a t b r e e d i n

S many different Suffolk villages as we can adequately work.

Cf. p . 207 s u p r a . — E d . l

308

OBSERVATIONS.

T w o Alle alle, L I N N . , INLAND.—Immediately after the foggy weather of 11 December 1936, I picked up a Little Auk on my farm at Windwhistle here that had been killed, evidently bv driving blindly against a tree-trunk. I have heard of another that was similarly found, about the same time, in Suffolk but 1 forget its exact locality. Specimens do not seem often recorded so far inland, though they have been found occasionally at Sudbury and even Newmarket.—H. C . MURRELL ; Earls Soham.

C.olymbus immer, BRUN., IN W. SUFFOLK.—The Otter Hounds picked up the body of an immature Great Northern Diver on 27 March last, while hunting on the Giern Brook near Long Melford. There was a trace of oil on its breast. A single specimen, many years ago at Culford, has been hitherto known from western Suffolk.—HENRY ANDREWS. T H E SEA-BIRDS OF PEMBROKE IN 1937.—I have just returned from a very interesting journey through Pembrokeshire, including visits off the west coast to Grassholm Island where the Gannets (Sula bassana, L.) were nesting in thousands ; to Skomer Island, where are the largest colonies of Black-backed and Herring Gulls (Larus marinus, L. and L. argentatus, Gmel.) I have hitherto seen, with Puffin (Fratercula artica, L.), Guillemots, Razorbills and Shearwaters (Uria troile, Alca torda, L., Piiffiinüs puffinus), all in countless numbers ; then to Skokholm Island, which is very much over-rated and not worth visiting ; and finally we came along the entire coastline from Fishguard to the south at Llanellv, enjoying the most beautiful weather all the time. I know nothing about Beetles, but took several of the enclosed [Cicindela campestris, L.] at Little Häven on St. Brides Bay ; and the Shells [young Littorina rudis, Mat.] were in great quantities near Tenby.-GEORGE BIRD ; Ipswich, 26 May. T H E BIRDS OF EARLS SOHAM.—The following eighty-two species have been seen and identified within the bounds of this inland village by our Member, MAJOR H. de MUSSENDEN-LEATIIES : Mistle Thrush, Song Thrush, Redwing, Fieldfare, Blackbird, Ring Ouzel, Wheatear, Whinchat, Redbreast, Nightingale, Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat, Blackcap, Reed Warbier, Goldcrest, ChiiTchaff, Hedge Sparrow, House Sparrow, Longtailed Tit, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Blue Tit, ' Willow Wren,' Nuthatch, Wren, Tree Creeper, Pied Wagtail, Yellow Wagtail, T r e e Pipit, Meadow Pipit, Swallow, Swift, House Martin, Sand Martin, Linnet, Gold Finch, Chaff Finch, Bull Finch, Green Finch, ? Brambling, Mealy Redpoll, Yellow Hammer, Reed Bunting, Starling, Jay, Sky Lark, Magpie, Jackdaw, Hooded Crow, Rook, Nightjar, Wryneck, Green Woodpecker, (Lesser ?) Spotted Woodpecker, Kingfisher, Cuckoo, Barn Owl, Long-eared Owl, Little Owl, Sparrow Hawk, Kestrel, Heron, Sheld Duck, Mallard, Shoveler, Teal, Wigeon, Ring Dove, Turtle Dove,

OBSERVATIONS.

309

' Blue Rock Dove ' |by which is apparently intended Columba livia, Gmel., to which Dr. Ticehurst takes exception because this species is pretty well confined to the rocks of our Atlantic coast: will the Major kindly afford further details of his record ?

—Ed.], Pheasant, Partridge, Red-legged Partridge, Water Rail, Moor-hen, Coot, Lapwing, Woodcock, Snipe, Jack Snipe, Redshank, Black-headed Gull, Little Grebe. This is a remarkably comprehensive list of avian fauna for any such restricted district; and I should be interested to hear if other Members have observed as many species in a single locality.—C.S.L. A MS. D O L P H I N RECORD.—In my copy of the Paget's 1 8 3 4 Sketch of Nat. Hist. Great Yarmouth is entered in MS. at page 18 by Charles A. Preston (of page xv), to whom it at first belonged, this note in now rather faded i n k : — " Delphinus Phoecena.

Dolphin, taken off Yarmouth April 1845 measuring 8 ft. 6 in. in length, and in circumference 4 ft. 4 in.; the only specimen known to have been taken. It was exhibited in London at Grovis (?) the Fishmongers near Bond' (?) St. This is not the Dolphin of the Tropical Seas."

Such a capture can hardly have been hitherto overlooked by our Norfolk confreres ; what is the reference to it in their Transactions ? — C L A U D E MORLEY. RABBIT'S DENTAL MALFORMATION.—An abnormal Lepus cuniculus, Linn., just killed here, was brought me today, 4 January. It possesses no more than two teeth, and these are respectively one and l f inches in length, external and pointing upwards. I shall keep the skeleton of the skull and send it to you later. T h e extraordinary point is that, although efficiently toothless, the specimen is the fattest I ever saw, its kidneys being lost in rolls of adipose tissue.—E. W. PLATTEN ; Needham Market.

MORE YELLOW-NECKED MICE.—Lord Cranbrook has been good enough to teil me (in lit. 1 January last) that two specimens of Apodemus flavicollis, Wint., have been sent to him from Higham in south Suffolk, one of which was captured in a house ; he adds that the British Museum possesses a male specimen from Woolpit.

These constitute the fifth record from our County and show that the species, though undoubtedly rare, is of commoner occurrence than was formerly believed, probably owing to too vague

identification.—HENRY ANDREWS. BLACK RATS IN L O W E S T O F T . — M u s rattus, Linn., is said to be seen occasionally now about buildings adjoining the harbour ; and one that I saw, belonging to two litters which seem to have heen successfully brought off, was trapped in Vale's muchfrequented old-books shop in Tönning Street, which rises verv little above the harbours' level, on 22 September last.— F- C . COOK. [The species was first definitely recorded from this town by Mr. Andrews : Proc. ii, p. cii.—Ed.]

TAI.L BROOM-RAPF..

PBRFOLIATE

HONEYSUCKI.E.

M A G P I E ' S N E S T I N W I L L O W T R E E AT

TUDDENHAM.

YOUNG

GANNET.

RABBIT'S

DENTAL

MAI.FORMATION.

310

OBSERVATIONS.

IPSWICH SQUIRRELS PROPAGATE.—What a b o u t

Red

Squirrels

in Suffolk ? After an almost complete disappearance for twelve or fifteen years, during the last two Sciurus vulgaris, Bork., has been in Christchurch Park, north Ipswich, in considerable numbers as well as the adjoining gardens, where they raid the Birdtables. I myself have never seen Grey Squirrels (S. Carolinensis, Gmel.) here, so they cannot, as has often been alleged to be the case, have been responsible for the long disappearance of our Red' friends who have returned now in such plenty—W. ROWLEY ELLISTON ; 15 March 1937. A Squirrel was disporting himself in my Kettleburgh garden one day in 1928 ; but I am distinctly sorry to relate that neither those after his Red kind nor those after the Grey kind have appeared since that year.—S. T . CRIBB. [Carshalton authorities in Surrey have engaged one of their scavengers to shoot Squirrels within their Jurisdiction, on the plea of damage wrought therearound !—Ed.] BADGERS IN A NEW LOCALITY.—I have just heard of a definite case of a Badger (Meies taxvs, Schreb.) being seen crossing the road near Monument Farm in Foxhall village near Ipswich by three people in a car together, who would not make a mistake in their recognition of such a large animal.—HENNIKER, Braiseworth; 4 October.

BED TIME AT HOME.—The brilliant golden afterglow lit all the dull blue sky and threw the Elm-trees at the garden's limit into strong Silhouette of traceried foliage.

T h e world was still with the peace of an English sabbath in country places far from roads ; and nothing murmured but the distant bay of two farm dogs, borne upon the almost breathless air of late August. A drowsy Robin, perched upon the very top of a summerhouse, curtsied several times in quick succession, perhaps taking at each bow one of the small Chironomid Gnats that were hasting to cover as the sky's gold faded into yellow ; he flew off, but at once resumed his perch. Nor would he move when a great Brown Owl swooped from the house-top, above his head, and off across the paddock to light in a tall Ash upon its further side ; hardly had he settled when a second followed in his train ; and then the two began an almost human colloquy, startlingly like the opening bars of Grimalkin's midnight mewings. A pale Moth, doubtless Amata, flitted past my chair ; and I heard the Shard-borne Beetle, Gectrypes, booming on his blind course through the dusk. Then came the first Bat, with its plaintive vespertilian squeak, foreboding ill to all the Insect world less fleet of wing. T h e erstwhile yellow of the west paled to tender saffron and my Robin twittered cosily from the ivy mantling an aged Elder-bush as he tucked himself up for the night, not without some protest grunted surlily by a Blackbird from the opposing Ash. Then dusk feil so dim 1 could see but the sombre glimmer of the moat and scarce distinguish the gay pattern of deck-chairs on the lawn, in one of which I sat tili all was sunk to sleep in the gracious murk, leaving the world to darkness and to me.