Observations 4 Part 1

OBSERVATIONS.

52

OBSERVATIONS. ' I love thee, Nature, as a child Loves the dear M o t h e r that beguil'd Its many tedious hours of pain, And soothed it into health again.'

J. W . Douglas (Ent. Mag. 1838, 257).

every part of Suffolk are to be found lanes, now transmogrified into ugly tarred roads, that are of distinctly lower level than the land on either side ; in sandy districts these are just as often flat, but wherever they occur on clay it will be noticed that only upon a slope, and the steeper the incline the higher are the banks, do such sunk ways occur. There is, for example, a short and sharp rise in Monks Soham (locally ' Big Hill,' though solely by comparison) from a brook that trickles in winter through Poplar Meadow, though no poplars have grown there since at latest 1892, on the east to Hollow Lane, now a mere foot-path on the west; and this rise is ten feet below the flanking land-level, but towards both extremities the lateral altitude gradually decreases tili on the crest the sides are on a plane with the road. Local folk believe the hill to have been cut away by their forbears; but it is, I am sure, perfectly obviously the result of a thousand years' wear and tear by foot-sloggers and farm-carts, ably backed, when some slight depression had at first been thus hollowed, by the washings of rain which could not move clay but easily disintegrates the modicum of sand here mixed with the clay, just as both sun and frost do in the case of its chalk-nodules. Gilbert White's fifth Letter similarly accounts for sunk ways in Hants and I have somewhere seen a note by H . B. Woodward that ascribes similar phenomena to Norfolk.

Tracts excavated on the level fall into an entirely distinct category, for here only two causes seem available. Firstly one has the slight lateral thrust of ordinary traffic ; but when the banks rise more than a foot one must, in view of the levelling counterthrust of wind, suppose artificial excavation was exercised at some remote period. Such sandy hollows have been very largely obliterated by the plough and felling of their retaining hedges, but are still conspicuous about at least the Gisleham pit and Frostenden brick-fields, both on Pleistocene gravel underlain by brick-earth. Why and at what period they should have been dug out is matter for the archaist.

O U R S U N K LANES.—In

OBSERVATIONS.

53

N.B. ON OUR FOSSIL ANIMALS.—It should not be forgotten, when the multitudinous Crag and other post-Eocene fossil Animals of Suffolk come to be critically Listed, that I was ignorant of the late Mr. Alfred Bell's valuable and well-referenced paper on the ' Type and Figured Specimens in Ispwich M u s e u m ' (Jour.

Ips'w. F. Club v, pt. i, 1917, p. 41). Of it the Terrestrial and Marine Vertebrata must be connoted with those given in our Trans, ii, 13 & 28 ; Aves at Trans, ii, p. 203 ; Pisces, hardly conveying the wealth of material in that Museum, at Trans, ii, p. 104 ; Crustacea at Trans, ii, p. 265 ; Echinoderma at Trans, i, p. 89 ; Cahntet ata, not yet Listed by us ; Mo/Zuwra-Lamellibranchia at Trans, ii, p. 232 and Gastropoda not yet Listed.—CLAUDE MORLEY. COLONY OF DAFFODILS (Trans, iii, 2 7 7 ) . — T h e Observation was of considerable interest to me, for well I remember this delightful Stretch of rural scenery fiftv years ago. Many a time as a youngster I have beaten a hurried retreat there from the keeper, who in those days was a woman with an uncanny aptitude for always being just where one least wanted her and who, 'twas said, never slept!

There are more patches of Narcissus pseudonatcissus, L., than that near the Domesday Harbour which lies on land my brotherin-law farmed for many years tili 1935 ; large quantities grow both along the field-hedgerows and in at least two woods there : in fact the whole district is füll of interest to the Naturalist. The shallow stream used to hold great attraction for a lad, the pools being füll of Roach (Leuciscus rutilus, L.), &c., many of really good size ; it was there I learned to fish with both hook and net, generally getting into trouble with my mother on washing and brewing days for taking all her tubs to hold the results ! After a high tide at Easton Broad I have often seen these marshes at South Cove flooded with salt-water that sent the river-fishes in great shoals up into shallow rivulets, in which men waded with buckets to bale out these fish that were afterwards carted to Lowestoft and there sold as bait for Cod. GEORGE BIRD, Ipswich ; 7 Jan. 1938.—I found your Daffodil patch at Frostenden on 3 April this year, but by that date all the blossoms were over.

On 18 April I discovered Ornithogalum nutans, L., at Barsham, where also I had found it in 1916.—J. L. MOORE. EARLY SPRING FLOWERS.—The almost naturalised Winter Heliotrope, Petasites fragrans, Presl., was out in flower at Burstall on 2 January ; by the 20th, in sheltered woods and copses, Haselcatkins had fully expanded and their abundant pollen liberally dusted the way-farer. So opened an extraordinarily early spring, wherein flowers blossomed most irregularlv as the sun shone forth brilliantly day after day from a June-like sky. Early in March the Sweet Violets, Viola odorata, L., reached their perfection and, observers everywhere teil me, were of finer size and intenser

54

OBSERVATIONS.

perfume than are usual. As the month waxed woods, copses and ditches became yellow with Primroses and, before its end, Oxlips were fully out but very poor and short-stemmed. Already Orchis mascula, L., was in blossom : has anyone ever before found it flowering in our County during March ? On 29th M r . Doughty writes that White Comfrey was in flower at east Hopton : this record must refer to Symphytum Orientale, L., a native of Europe that is naturalised on banks in many villages. I saw the whiteflowered form of our native S. officinale, by the Stour at Wissington Mill during the Society's Excursion in early August.

He adds that plants of both Heracleum sphondylium, L., and Carduus pycnocephalus, L., were also blossoming there, with Erodium cicutaiium, L'Her., at Gorleston. But this early rush was effectively checked by dull and cold days in April and May, which spoiled the Wood Hyacinths in many localities, and by June's advent the seasonal balance had become restored.

O U R COAST FLORA.—Vegetation upon the shingle-ridge and marshes between Dunwich and Walberswick suffered badly through the exceptionally high tide and flood of the past February, when salt-water ascended Easton Broad and Reydon ' Smear ' nearly to Member Bevan's house, The Grove. Several species did not reappear upon them at all during the summer, and others were reduced in n u m b e r : although they all were kinds which are normally fed by sea-spray and brackish water. A few of the more interesting finds between those two places are :—Ranunculus sardous, Cr., Cochlearia Danica, L. (cp. Proc. supra, iii, p. cxlvi), Crambe maritima, L., Trifolium fragiferum, L., Lathyrus maritimus, Big., Sedum anglicum, Hudds., Qinanthe Lachenallii, Gmel., the Linnean Eryngium maritmum, Crithmum maritimum, Artemisia maritima, Senecio viscosus, Carlina vulgaris, Jasione montana, Glaux maritima, Samolus valerandi, Euphorbia paralias, Orchis latifolia, Triglochin maritimum, T. palustre, Eleocharis palustris, var. uniglumis (Sch.) and Scirpus setaceus, as well as S. compressus, Pers., Carex divia, Huds., C. distans, L., Glyceria Borreri, Bab., G. distans x maritima, Lepturus filiformis, Trin., Agropyron pungens (littorale) X repens, Elymus arenarius and Ophioglossum vulgatum, L. With them I found growing the Japanese Briar Rose, Rosa rugosa, evidently derived from bird-borne seed of garden origin; formerly it occurred also on the shore at Shingle-street, but has been dug up and removed by some acquisitive Goth during the present summer.

T H E COLOURLESS WAYSIDE.—Our common wayside flowers are suffering badly, these days, from the totally merciless scythes and spades of the county councils' hedge-trimmers and are all too frequently suffocated beneath loads of horrid sand, grit and even veritable tar. Long-loved banks whereon always grew priceless treasures and colourful posies have now become dull,

OBSERVATIONS.

55

stale and unprofitable. Why cannot these soulless councils co-operate with Naturalists to schedule a list of special banks, grass verges and the like, whereupon a peculiar flora will flourish in accordance with the soil, and then instruct their men to leave such listed areas untouched as far as may be ? Some plants, favouring hedge-banks and waysides, have been unable to survive their present cavalier treatment and, where formerly profuse, are now utterly exstirpated. Geranium rotundifolium, L., missing through five previous seasons, reappeared at Belstead on 19 May ; G. lucidum, L., is certainly decadent, but yet to be discovered upon banks at Bealings Magna, Nayland-Stoke and Lawshall. Verbenaofficinalis, L., has become comparatively scarce, along with Chenopodium Bonus-Henicus, L. Also Aceras anthropophora, R. Br., which favours a few chalky banks, is fast vanishing away.

VEGETATION OF A POOL AND BRACKISH DYKE.—At Walberswick is a creaking wind-pump that raises water from a low-lying dyke and discharges it into a small, artificially-dug pool. In this dyke, fringed with the sea Club Rush, Scirpus maritimus, L. and with S. Tabernoemontani, Gmel., the water looks inky-black and acid ; but in the pool it is quite clear, because quickly oxygenated by abundant plant-life, accelerated by continuous sunshine. A thick green scum of algae obscured the surface of the dyke's water in mid-August last, but was soon blown, frothedup, upon one side of the bank by a streng southerly breeze.

Further down the dyke, where the water has a gentle flow, are Frogbit (Hydrocharis morsus-rance, L.), Tassel Pondweed (Ruppia rostellata, Koch) and sea Wrack (Zostera angustifolia, Horn).

At the pool, some Gyrinus-beetles skim rapidly over the surface ; and Con'xa-Waterboatmen dive and swim to and fro. I thrust an arm into the mass of thickly interwoven weeds, found the water surprisingly warm, and tore away a handful of it. When untangled Water Milfoil (Myriophyllum spicatum, L.), Fennel-leaved Pondweed (Potamogeton pecitnatus, L.), Ruppia rostellata, Koch, Horned Pondweed (Zannichellia maritima, Nolte) and Zostera angustifolia, Horn, were found to constitute its ingredients.

Two A L I E N PLANTS.—Many of our Members, who regularly take lunch in the Abbey grounds of Bury Saint Edmunds at the Society's May Meeting in that city, have remarked upon a kind of Garlic that grows profusely in the shrubbery. The origin of this species there formed the subject of an enquiry on 10 May last from our Member, Mrs. Bull. It appears to be Alliutn oleraceum, Linn. ; and we may, I think, consider it as a survival of the old municipal Botanic Gardens, rather than as introduced for culinary or medicinal purposes by the mediaeval Benedictines.—Mr. Platten sends on 1 June a plant of the pretty Italian Geranium striatum, Linn., from his Needham garden,

56

OBSERVATIONS.

where he declares it to have become a pest, adding that it formerly grew wild at Creeting. N o w it thrives in my own Ipswich garden ! — F R A N C I S W . SIMPSON. M O R E MEADOWS OF S A F F R O N . — M y father and I were especially interested in a meadow of A u t u m n Crocuses near Otley, seen in early September (TERESA CHEVALLIER, Rushmere ; l O S e p t . ) .

T h i s is doubtless that u p o n Chestnuts Farm, just within the south-west border of Cretingham village and not that of Trans, iii, 275. Here this Colchicum autumnale, L., used in 1905 to grow in as great profusion as it does in another, unknown to Hind, at Monewden.—GRACE WATSON, Margate.

FLORA LOCATING O L D EARTHWORKS.— M a n y earthworks are gradually disappearing in agricultural districts. Banks, that were notable landmarks fifty years ago, are now scarcely discernible unless pointed out. I n these cases, I have found the Vegetation growing on t h e m a useful guide. For instance, Beldam describes (Archffiol. Journ., vol. xxv) a Roman camp by the Portway at Melbourn : I searched in vain for traces of this until, my attention having been attracted by an old furze-bush, which is now very rare in these parts, growing on a hedge bank by t h e roadside, I examined the grass and found it consisted largely, of Festuca ovina. T h e n it was possible, on getting to the other side of the thick hawthorn hedge, with a little imagination, to make out two sides of a camp in the adjoining orchard and meadow, of which one ended at the hedgebank where grew the furzebush. T h e Bran Ditch and old track of the Ickneild [Icenhild] W a y show a still more characteristic flora : on the former I have noticed Helianthemum vulgare, Cerastium arvense, Nepeta Catrana, Spiraea Filipendula, Filago germanica, Carduus eriophorus, Carlina vulgaris, Bromus erectus, Kaeleria cristata, Aver.a pratensis and many others which are to be found nowhere eise in the neighbourhood except it be on Melbourn Common, lying at the north-west end of the Ditch. T h i s is a most delectable spot for a botanist to explore: Parnassia palustria, Cladium mariscus, and other pleasant surprises will reward him.—W. M .

Palmer (EA. Notes and Queries, ns., vi, 47).

STINKING IRIS' D I S T R I B U T I O N . — I S Iris fatidissima, L., often f o u n d in north-east Suffolk ? I have never noticed it in these parts tili today when we saw a good-sized clump, easily distinguished (from the car) by its red berries, in a ditch bounding a field and wood on east side of the road between Henstead and W r e n t h a m

churches.—JOHN

L.

MOORE, G o r l e s t o n ;

2

Jan.

1938.

[He

later found a large patch near Sotterly and M r . Doughty, on 25 June, some six plants in a lane at Somerleyton.—Hind records it f r o m Flixton, Bungay, Blythbro, Thorington and Sibton in

OBSERVATIONS.

57

those parts ; b u t it is local with us, constantly destroyed by landcleaning and commonest in south-central Suffolk. T h e beetle that is peculiar to it, and not the common Yellow Flag, is Monyches pseudocori, Fab., which has been found in its seedpods f r o m July to October in only Devon, Dorset, I. Wight and is not yet recorded from Sufiolk. Search !—Ed.] T H E ROYAL FERN.—We were lunching in Denny wood on 3 July last, a week of so before the King and Queen followed so good example (!), when M r s . Hawley wondered if she h a d seen O s m u n d a regalis, Linn., in Matley Bog which lay stretched below us running u p to the picturesque Matley Wood crowning the opposing heather-clad counterscarp. T h e remark reminded me that, in August 1938, she and I had discovered this splendid plant, a " tall handsome fern in bogs, formerly tolerably frequent in Suffolk, now [1889] everywhere e x t i r p a t e d " (Hind), while rambling in search of Insects, still growing in the marshes on the landward side of the Dingle hills in Dunwich. It seems to have become so nearly extinct that this occurrence is certainly worth perpetuating.—COLONEL BROUGHTON HAWLEY ; Bodenham Wiks. [We accompanied them in Denny Wood and, on 21 September following, set forth to locate Osmunda more exactly.

But we feil into the hands of a keeper who knew no such Fern, and had to write direct to the owner of Dingle farm, Sir R. C. Davison, w h o asked us to a meal we were unable to accept, owing to previous engagements with Members. Sir Ronald wrote on 27th f r o m 39 Landsowne-Road, W l l . , " w e left Dingle early ; I am sorry to miss you. It seems fairly certain that the salt, resulting f r o m the flood of 7 February last, has killed the Royal Fern : we could see nothing of it." T h o u g h hardly more likely in 1938 than in this many a hundred years.—Ed.]

SOME FOXHALL F U N G I . — T h e local daily press so far forget xtself (!) as to print on 17 October last, and so render intelligible to Botanists, the Latin names of the following species that had been observed by the Ipswich and District Natural History Society, and determined by our M e m b e r , M r . Mayfield, two days earlier at Brookhill Wood in Foxhall near I p s w i c h : — Amanita vaginata, Bull, muscaria, L., aspera, Fr., Lepiota cristata, Fr., Tricholoma sulphureum, Bull, Clitocybe geotrupa, Bull, laccata,Scop., Mycena galericulata, Scot., Hypholoma sublateritium, Fr., fasciculare, Huds., Paxillus involutus, Fr., Lactarius turpis, Fr., deliciosus, Fr., Russula emetica, Fr., alutacea, Fr., Marasmius oreades, Fr., Lenzites betulina, Fr., Boletus luteus, L., subtomentosus, L., Polyporus hirsutus, Fr., versicolor, Fr., Phyllacteria or Thelephora terrestris, F r . (Proc. S N S . 1934, p. cxcv), Ciavaria rugosa, Bull, Belvella crispa, Fr., Peziza aurantia, F r . and Xylaria .vpoxylon, Grev. T h e most interesting discovery and sole one

58

OBSERVATIONS.

not in Vict. Hist. 1911 and so possibly NEW to our County List is Sparassis crispa, a rare brassicoid fungus, a fine mass of which sprouted under a fir-tree.

A FRESH-WATER SPONGE.—A young lady, while fishing at Crowley Park lake in Needham Market, brought the enclosed specimen to land fouled on her fish-hook today. Is it a Sponge : I had no idea any lived in fresh water ?—E. W. PLATTEN ; 17 August 1938. [Certainly it is a Sponge, Ephydatia fluviatilis, U n n a u s (Flora Suecica 439, Flora Lapp. 389, Syst. Naturae no. 1299) and the only one of the British two species of freshwater Porifera likely to occur with us. It is NEW to Suffolk, though we ought to have discovered it earlier as it is included in all the best county faunas, e.g. Morey's Isle of Wight 1909, p. 214 and Carr's Nottingham 1916, p. 2. It turns up " on rocks and other solid bodies at the bottom of deep ponds, lakes and in still-runping water, frequent and found distributed very generally throughout the Island " of Britain, says Johnston's History of British Sponges, where it is well figured at plates xvii-xviii in its crustaceous, massive and arborescent states (cp. Bowerbanks's Monograph, four vols. 1864-82). In general, it is a sessile and encrusting, massive or irregularly lobed form of a yellowishbrown or dull-green colour, varying in size from a few mm. to coatings of a foot or more in diameter, often common in rivers and canals attached to submerged timber. T h e present specimen is four and a half inches long.—Ed.] A CHIETOPOD WORM.—I am sending you herewith a fine specimen of a Worm that is a great favourite as bait among the local anglers. This specimen has just been found in the estuarine mud near harbour here. What is the extremely nasty-looking object ?—JACK GODDARD, Lowestoft; 20 October. [A fullygrown King Rag-worm, Nereis diversicolor, Müll., of the less usual plumbeous coloration and some nine inches in length (cf. Trans, ii, 283). Many hundreds of them were seen swimming on the surface of Breydon Water on 5 June 1899 ( T r . Norf.

Nat. Soc. vii, 65), where they were being eaten from mud by Bar-tailed Godwits in May 1911 (1. c. ix, 456), as well as Wimbreis, Knots, Dunlins, &c., and are there sometimes killed by silt (1. c. x, 164). They are occasionally observed, swimming against tide on the surface, at Gorleston (Tr. Suff. Nat. Soc. i, 103); in our County this species is " common in the various estuaries in mud left dry at low water and, in 1901, was very abundant in the Orwell at Pinmill, not much below high-water mark.

Some specimens are red from the amount of haemoglobin, others are pale, and some deeply coloured by a peculiar green p i g m e n t " (Vict. Hist. Suff. 1911, p. 91).—Ed.]

OBSERVATIONS.

59

MARINE ANNULATA AT G O R L E S T O N . — A m o n g the Worms that occur on the breakwater just south of the pier, I have found Nereis fucata, Sav., in the common Hermit-crab Eupagurus Bernhardus, L. ; and Audouinia tentaculata, Mont., where the sand contains a fair amount of mud. Pectinaria Koreni, Malm., the Comb-worm, occurs also and is one of the most beautiful things thrown up after a storm. A colony of Arenicola marina, L., has become established in muddy sand of what is known as the Ham, between the breakwater and the piers' end : it becomes visible at the lowest tides. Spirorbis borealis, Daud. [NEW to Suffolk.—Ed.], is brought to the beach on fronds of FUCHS-weed ; and Sabellaria alveolata, L., forms masses of sandy tubes at the back of the breakwater. A small local Barnacle is Chthamalus stellatus, Poli, I believe [if so, NEW to Suffolk.—Ed.] ; and the curious Arachnid Pycnogonum littorale, Ström, is frequent on Anemones.—E. A. ELLIS, 84 Springfield Road, Gorleston ; 27 August 1931 (withheld for author's names, now suffixed.—Ed.).

IN GILBERT WHITE'S L A N D . — I have been at Empshott Vicarage near Liss in Hants for some time, and am just within sight of the famous village of Seiborne, lying in a Valley well worth a visit, being rieh in many things. T h e famous ' Nore Hill ' or Hanger, alone, is a sight one rarely sees : seven hundred acres of immense Beech-trees, all on this huge hanging hill that is three hundred feet high, with a prospect from the summit of smooth grey trunks and bright green foliage, and the descent through drv rustling leaves often knee-deep, with Magpies, Jackdaws and other birds nying in and out among the great branches, and many smaller kinds in the Valley below. On and around this hill I have picked such flowers as Herb Paris, Broomrape, Tway-blade, Bee and Fly Orchids, Woodruff, Garlic and Spurge-laurel. Several times I have been up the celebrated zig-zag walk of the great Gilbert White : perhaps you know it ? It is a charming valley, quite off the beaten track and at present unspoiled, though the village itself is always füll of folk in summer ; and in winter, too, vou seldom enter without seeing a few, all eagerly searching memorials of the great Naturalist. The valley's Birds are a uehght to me in our old garden, where all the Tits come to the bird-table. In Beech-woods I have heard the Foxes bark and, m summer-time, Sanacle is plentiful. Mistlethrushes have just stripped the Yews, gorging themselves upon the berries tili they are sick.—(Miss) W. SHERWOOD, Lattice Avenue, Ipswich ; •9 Dec. 1937.

ARACHNIDA: A QUEER-COATED B E E T L E . — W e found a curious object on the edge of one of our sugar-patches at Mildenhall on September last. On close inspection it proved to be a Silphid e e wit h its antennae, head and thorax plainly showing, but

60

OBSERVATIONS.

the whole otherwise apparently clad in a thick woolly jacket: which jacket, on still closer inspection, was seen to be a dense covering of Mites belonging to the genus Gamasus, Latr. One is familiar with these Arachnids on Geotrupine Beetles, where they may sometimes be found more or less thickly covering the whole abdomen ; but whether they are the same species I am unable to say. In our Silphid the whole elytra, abdomen and four posterior femora and tibise were entirely hidden by a coating of these Acari, apparently three deep. One wonders what happens when the Beetle opens its elytra to fly ; and they must have had a rough journey whilst it climbed up the tree-trunk to the sugar. Perhaps our learned Editor can teil us (1) what is the meaning of this association of Beetle with Acari, (2) how the latter get their sustenance, and (3) whether this horde would put a strain on their host's vitality. T h e Beetle, when cleared, proved to be Necrophorus ruspator, Er.—C. G. DOUGHTY ; 17 October. [The three queries here put have been so often left unanswered, because beyond the scope of Entomology, that it may be well to treat them somewhat fully. (1) The meaning of assocaition is that the Mites (like modern Germans) need distribution to a wider extent than they themselves can achieve and, consequently, make use of involuntary transitors. This habit is known as Phoresy, i.e. free transport, by an adequately mobile unit, of a creature whose travelling powers are not adequate, from one special temporary habitat to another of the same kind.

Mites' transitors fall into at least three well-known groups: (a) Bees, bearing species of Gamasus and Trichotarsus, e.g.

Bombus, carrying three adult Gamasus spp. (first described by Hull in 1918), and Osmia (upon a single individual of which genus Revd. C. R. Burrows once counted 1400 hypopid nymphs of a Tarsonenid Mite at Mucking in Essex) ; (ß) Dor Beetles, Geotrypcs spp., bearing Gamasus Coleoptratorum, L., possibly the nymphal form of Macrocheies glaber, Müller ; and ('/) Burying Beetles, Necrophorus, &c., bearing G. stygius, Hull, whose nymph is prettv surely G. Carabi, Canestrini. (2) Specific Phoresy synchronises with a resting stage in the Mite's development, during which it does not feed and its mouth-parts are not or may not be fully developed, which particular nymphal phase is termed hypopid.

This learned exposition we owe to our Member, Dr. J. E. Hull (3) Hence the host's incubus is obviously confined to avoirdupois, for from all sense of irritability the dense chitin of their •exoskeleton must surely render both Bees and Beetles immune.

—Ed.]

M E D I Ä V A L OBSERVATIONS.—It has often Struck us what an interesting task would be the extraction and tabulation of all the by no means inconsiderable Observations upon Biology that are mentioned through historical and desultory writings of our

61

OBSERVATIONS.

British mediaeval authors. Knighton, Gervase, Wendover, Malmesbury, Girald, Hovedon, Florence, especially Ingulf and even the ASaxon Chronicle, all give incidental details of such ; but most usually in respect to conditions of flood and storm, which our Meteorologists seem, f r o m Press references, to have already assimilated. W h e t h e r Botanists have done so I a m unaware; certainly Zoologists have not, and the majority of their records m u s t be bootless, for lack of anv precise Classification at that period : t h o u g h , in the case of Mammals, Birds and Fishes, it is sufficiently exact for general reference. T h e kind of thing one gets in Insects is well illustrated by a very late example, which our Gloucester confreres have doubtless noted long ago :—-" T h e foure and twentie of February, at Tewkesbury a stränge thing happened, after a flood which was not great, in the afternoone there came downe the river of Severne great numbers of Flies and Beeteis, such as in s u m m e r evenings use to strike men in the face, in greate heapes, a foote thick above the water, so that to credible m e n ' s j u d g e m e n t there were within a paire of Butes length of those Flies above a h u n d r e d quarters.

The Milles thereabout were d a m m e d u p with t h e m for the space of four daies after, and then were cleansed by digging t h e m out with shovels : f r o m whence they came is yet unknowne, but the day was colde and a harde frost " (Stowe's 1597 black-letter Chronicle). Or, in that ' well of English undefiled ' (which Chaucer's is not regarded n o w !), Consequent u p o n a somewhat small flood, great n u m b e r s of Flies and Beetles, such as usually strike one in the face u p o n s u m m e r evenings [Homalota, Cercyon, &c.], were floated down the River Severn at Tewkesbury, on the afternoon of the 24 February which was a cold day of hard frost, in heaps that stood a foot out of the water and were estimated at over eight h u n d r e d bushels within two butts length [according to H e n r y viii's arrow-shot regulation distance]. T h e local mills were choked by t h e m for the f o u r subsequent days, tili the Insects had been d u g away by hand.—Masses of such Insects are unnoticed while at home in their native marshes, b u t become conspicuous objects when washed thence, mixed with plant refuse of course by a flood.

A COMMON BEETLE NEW TO SUFFOLK.—I

was

much

Struck,

when compiling my s u m m a r y of ' the Beetles of the Eastern Counties' (Essex Nat. 1905, p. 57), by the absence f r o m all EAnglia of Anchomenus angusticollis, Fab., that is a b u n d a n t u n d e r tree-bark and on sugar in woods ' t h r o u g h o u t the c o u n t r y ' (Fowler); I have taken it in Hants, Sussex, Notts, Derby, 8tc., and it approaches us as closely as Essex b u t is u n k n o w n in Norfolk.

In Suffolk, too, it had been quite unsuspected until 11 M a y 1938, when M r . G o d d a r d and I f o u n d specimens imbibing r u m on almost every-other sugared Oak t r u n k in H i n t o n W o o d .

<62

OBSERVATIONS.

It would seem to be exclusively nocturnal and restricted to virgin forest-land, though why it should occur in Blythburgh and not Bentley or any other of our oft-sugared woods is obscure.

A N ORIGINALLY SUFFOLK BEETLE.—Coryphium angusticolle, Steph., is a small Staphalynid that was first taken, in the whole world, near Levington in Suffolk by the Revd. Revett Sheppard about 1802 and near Ipswich by Kirby of Barham, whose original M S . description was printed by Stephens (Illust. Mandib, 1834), who also took it in hedges about London. Since 1888, when Fowler considered it ' always rare ' in moss and under bark of various kinds of trees, it has turned up in very few counties from April to June. I found one under bark of a pine-fence in Wherstead on 13 April 1897; and on 5 May 1938 one flew in the sunshine on to the book I was reading in Monks Soham garden ; but the species doubtless hibernates in the perfect State, for in October 1904 another specimen was noticed slowly crawling on the wall of an outhouse in the same garden.

A N H O U R ON THE BRECK.—When I used a similar title for a former note on this steppe district ( E M M . 1900, p. 288), the Breck was so little known that at least one entomologist presumed I had been indulging in ' one crowded hour of glorious life ' ! And, though there is nothing hilarious about crawling and scratching moss, turning over stones, &c, the joy of discovering rare Insects is perennial. Around Brandon the district is so quickly and deplorably becoming afforested with horrid Pines that other parts must soon be sought for Breck species. Knettishall Heath is very typical of this steppe and a search there, in but one of its small grassy pits on 30 May last, showed at least a half-dozen of the ' Brandon' specialities.

In all I saw the Beetles:—Harpalus rufibaibis, Fab., H. latus, L., H. piceipertnis, Dft. (several), Amara tibialis, Payk., A. lucida, Dft., A. trivialis, Gyl., Calathus cisteloides, Pz., Sunius filiformis, Ltr. (NEW to Suffolk), Byrrhus murinus, Fab. (not uncommon), Simplocaria striata, Fab., Trachyphlceus scabriculus, L., and T. spinimanus, Germ. ; the Hymenopteron Bracon stabilis, Wsm. (very dark $ ) ; and the Hemipteron Petritrechus sylvestris, Fab. T h e afternoon was warm and cloudy, with blustering south-west breeze.— CLAUDE M O R L E Y .

A N U N C O M M O N SUFFOLK BEETLE.—Whilstengaged,on 2 7 August last with our Member Mr. J. L. Moore, in some phenomenally unsuccessful Lepidopterous larva-beating in the path running through Blythburgh Wood, I noticed on the tray what looked like a particularly bright-coloured and shining Lady-bird but, on closer inspection, proved to be a specimen oiEndomychuscoccineus, L., which is a rare Beetle in Suffolk, as my previously unrecorded

OBSERVATIONS.

63 capture of one on an Elder-leaf in Martlesham Rectory garden in May or early June circa 1902 is the hitherto most recent individual known in the County.—C. G. DOUGHTY ; Septr. 1938.

[Our late Treasurer Elliott and we only once chanced upon this Clavicorn in any profusion. Years ago on 9 September thirty examples, among which many pairs were in cop., occurred on aflatfungus under the bark of a dead Birch-trunk in a marshy wood in Tuddenham Fen. One pair lived in confinement tili only 24-5th of that month ; the Beetle certainly hibernates, however, for it was taken near Ipswich in early March 1894.—Ed].

A RARE CLICK.—Nothing is vouchsafed by Canon Fowler (Brit.

Coleop. iv, 79 & vi, 274) concerning the life-history of the small black Dirrhagus (Micronhagus) pygmaeus, Fab., nor can I suggest aught. On 23 June last I noticed a Single male bustling rapidly along, with vibrant antennae, on the now prostrate trunk of that Beech-tree of which I gave some account in EMM. 1935, p. 90, blown down the next year and now rotten. Hirn I gladly boxed; but it is nearly certain he had merelyflownon to the log, for cutting away the wood foracouple of feet, inbothdirectionsfromthisspot, revealed nothing but a few larvas of Melanotus rufipes and Rhagium inquisitor. Only a three-foot fang of the tree remains Standing, riddled by Leptura scutellata larvae ; on it at 1.15 (Gr. time) alit for a mere second afineIchneumon lugens, Grav. and round it were then Aying several of the Limnobiid Daddy-longlegs referred to in the above paper as carrying Chelifer Chernes nodosus, Sehr., on their legs and since ascertained to be Dicranomyia dumetorum Mg.—CLAUDE MORLEY, 1938.

VARIABLE EMERGENCE OF Callidium variabile, LINN.—In contrast to the emergence of those longicorn Beetles by the autumn immediately following the discovery of their larvae in Bentley Woods (Trans, iii, 186), it is interesting to note that the same species is quoted as occasionally of very long duration in the larval State Dr. Mason exhibited another timber-feeding Beetle-larva, a Buprestid that had eaten curiously little in the course of five months ; and referred to Thomas Marsham's Statement (Trans.

Linn. Soc., vol. x) that a similar Caterpillar of Buprestis aurulenta, L., had escaped in the London Guildhall from its self-bored hole in the wood of a desk which had stood herein for more than twenty years. Whereupon Mr. Blandford remarked that C. variabile was occasionally bred from dry wood at long intervals, that such larvae were not abnormally slow-growing, but that' they became so, by the faculty of maintaining life for very long periods ln ^e most unfavourable conditions, such as in dry timber and especialy when it has been rendered airtight by external varnish (Proc. Ent. Soc. 1898, p. xxxv).

64

OBSERVATIONS.

RARE LONGICORN BEETLE.—In the multitude of collectors lies finality ! Many of the best coleopterists of the last generation have worked Bentley Woods for Beetles, at least since 1892, yet it has been reserved for a Lepidopterist to reveal the existence there of a quite conspicuous Longicorn; our member, Mr. Percivale Burton beat a male of Mesosa nubila, Oliv., from an oak on 28 May last. In Britain, Stephens in 1839 knew this species from only Hants, Surrey, Berks and Worcs. in June (Man. Col. 272) ; Fowler, fifty years later, could add merely Hunts and Cambs : ' most of our indigenous specimens have been taken in the New Forest,' where two were found on 1 May 1885 in a small bough lying on the ground. Similarly, on 27 August 1901, I was so fortunate as to break a female there out of a rotten piece of fallen oak-branch, whose middle was sound, containing its pupal cell along with several larvae of Elaterids and Tipulids. Nor had its English distribution been extended by 1917. Düring July 1934 Charles Gulliver of Brockenhurst told me he had beaten fifteen specimens together from Alder in the New Forest, of which one was acquired, new to his collection, by our late Treasurer Mr. Elliott. A. Ford of Bournemouth told me in 1936 that he had once beaten forty or fifty specimens from oakleaves in Denny Wood there. Three previous Suffolk examples alone are known : at Bungay in 1857 (Dr. Garneys, Naturalist 1858, p. 160), at Battisford ' many years' before 1899 (Wm. Baker) and beaten at Assington in May 1915 (B. S. Harwood, in lit. 8 vii 15).

ANOTHER RARE LONGICORN.—Molorchus minor, Linn., was first known as British in 1792 to Martyn, who figures (pl. xxiii, fig. 2) its long antennse, tumid legs and claret-red, very short wing-cases with a snow-white oblique stripe on each, which are beautifully coloured by Curtis in 1824 from " Arno's Grove," wherever that may be. There it was found the preceding June, and in that month Stephens knew it in 1839 from Herts and Berks, which seems to limit its western ränge for it has since that time been noted in also only Beds, Leics, Middlesex and Surrey.

Nor was its distribution suspected of extending to EAnglia until so recently as 1914, when Mr. H. F. Fryer found it to occur around Mildenhall (Coleop. Suffolk, Ist Suppl. 1915, 8). In May 1924 Philip Harwood and I both beat a few from May-flower at Palmers Heath, Brandon, which is also on the Breck whereto it has been regarded as restricted with us tili now. I was much gratified in mid-May last to beat a füll series of this distingue Beetle from May-blossom bounding Blythburgh Wood near Suffolk's coast, five-and-forty miles further east, in the hottest sunshine of the spring. The species seems to automatically open its wings as soon as drop, for it never falls into the centre of the umbrella, usually near one edge, and probably a large

OBSERVATIONS.

65

proportion of those thus beaten evade it entirely. W h e n arrived thereon it most often immediately ' flies like a hare ' (as Dr. Nicholson said of Leptura fulva at Otterburn !) unless the sun's rays be excluded from it, in which case there is more, though but little, hesitation at taking flight. Its larva's food-plant is asserted

by Schiödte at ix, p. 414, to be ' pine and fir,' which seems true also of Britain, for in both the Suffolk localities they bounded the May-bushes this Longicorn affected, Scots-pine at Brandon and Spruce-fir at Blythburgh. Also, mirabile dictu after the spot had been collected over for forty years, a female was found on the same flowers by Scots-pine at Foxhall Plateau on 25 May. —CLAUDE

MORLEY.

M O R E Apion loevigatum, KIRBY.—Last year's locality for this rare Weevil at Frostenden (Trans, iii, 284) was again visited on 13 September and its entire field, so sandy a one that it was decked with Ragwort, Vipers-bugloss, Erodium cicutarium, Gorse, Broom, &c., and would be termed ' breck ' in N W . Suffolk, scoured for Filagn. Not a single plant of either species was present. Rabbits had nibbled all of the three first of the above and obviously exterminated the Filago : probably those of 1937 were the final survivors of a strong clump. So the local tale of this Apion seems to be told.—A prolonged search over the remaining unbrackened area of some six acres on Herringfleet Hills on 24th showed it still to produce a considerable heath-fauna, such as Delphax (Kelisia) vittipennis, Sahl., Philcenus exclamationis, T h b S t e n o b o t h r u s bicolo?, Chp., Gomphocerus maculatus, T h b . and Trachyphlceus scaber, L., all in numbers ; but neither Filago nor this Apion were discoverable (CM.).—Last year I found a C u d weed, that I believe to be F. Gallica, in a sandy place at Freckenham with the result that two of us were able to collect no less than eighteen specimens, including seven males, of this beautiful Apion at that fourth Suffolk locality in the Breck.—ERNEST

BEDWELL, S e p t .

1938.

T H E WEEVIL, Orchestes fagi, L . — " Comparative raritv " of local species is one of our Objects : almost everywhere throughout England this Beetle is freely beaten from Beech during May to 28 July, when our late Treasurer Elliott took it in the New Forest : my own original series is from Epsom Downs in June 1897. But, though Tuck found it at Tostock in 1898 (Col. Suff., p. 103), I had collected nearly a decade in Suffolk before beating a single specimen from Whitethorn in Shrubland Park on 4 May 1900.

The scarcity of Beech here accounts for that of all Insects feeding exclusively upon i t : not tili 1916 did O. fagi turn up again and then at Barton Mills on the Breck, where it was later found in profusion on introduced Beeches at Eriswell and Mildenhall during 1930-5. In east Suffolk its rarity persists, so I was

66

OBSERVATIONS.

glad to beat several examples in a wood at Farnham on 4 May last. No less than eighteen species of parasitic Hymenoptera have been bred from its larvae on the Continent. ' EXPERTO CREDE '.—Our Society seems to be assuming the proud position of General Informer upon all matters of Natural Science, though we have no ambition to supercede the activities for which the British Museum is maintained ! L a s t January we received from our friend Mr. A. Lumsden-Bedingfeld (descendant of the old Bedingfeld stock of Bedingfield in Suffolk) a couple of pink sheets of stout paper, ruled and calendared in printed ink. Both had been commonly bored in three places by an exactly circular hole, rather over a millimetre in diameter. " These index-cards have been eaten by a Bookworm," Mr. Bedingfeld writes, " two hundred sheets, equivalent to a thickness of l f inches, have been attacked but, as we know that this particular batch of paper was made on 10 December 1937, it seems to me that the speed these Insects travel is rather g r e a t ! T h e trouble is said to occur in the Buckland Paper Mills at Dover, but an examination of the remaining stock of this particular making shows no holes similar to these that were sent out, nor are any discoverable in surrounding woodwork. T h e paper in question is made from a coniferous wood, which has been boiled in calcium bisulphite liquid, followed by bleaching in calcium hypochlorite ; and, subsquent to making, the paper is passed through a suspension of gelatine, being finished with an acid reaction of about p H 5.2. I should be most grateful for any remarks you can make upon the cause and habits of the Insect concerned."— T h e size, shape and clean-cut edges of the borings showed the depredator to be a Beetle and a quite small one. T h e common Death-watch does not attack piled paper, nor were its tunnels found in any adjacent woodwork ; Lasioderma bores oval holes ; and the consistency of piled paper is too dense to be attacked by anything but the neotropic book-pest that was aptly named Hypothenemus eruditus by Prof. Westwood. This little Borer hardly a millimetre in length is, though cosmopolitan, fortunately rare in Britain, having been noticed in only Oxford and London (and Suffolk : Trans i, 18); and is pretty surely the culprit in the present instance. South America has been considered its original home, and it is suggestive that the holes in the paper were first detected in Bristol. So trim are its hole-edges that one must presume the gnawed paper to have passed through the Beetles' system, in which case the Perforation of two hundred stout sheets in the course of a Single month must be regarded a s n o m e a n feat.—CLAUDE MORLEY. ABSENCE FROM EANGLIA

of Calocoris

6-guttatus,

FAB.—This

is a very conspicucus Plant-bug (belonging to the group at Trans, ii, 137) of fair size, black with bright golden markings and the

OBSERVATIONS.

67

tips of the wing-cases red : an insect it were quite impossible to pass over unnoticed. Our Hon. Secretary and I, in the course of forty years collecting, however, have never seen it in Suffolk or any of the conterminous counties. This led us to investigate the species' British distribution ; and we find it recorded from Ireland, Scotland, Wales and every county of England except Monmouth, Hereford, and Salop (wherein collectors are few); Sussex and Hants (both well-worked counties, whence its absence is inexplicable); and our eastern group, consisting of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambs, Hunts, Beds, Bucks and Oxford : a wedge driven into England between Wash and Thames, with its apex at Oxford. So we wrote to Mr. A. H. Hamm of Oxford Museum, and he replies on 15 January last that " It has been taken in several localities near Oxford ": hence the wedge's nose retires to Bucks. This note does not pretend to account for the Bug's absence from the above seven eastern counties ; but simply calls attention to the fact, in order to elicit further Information upon the subject. Its intrusion in Herts is noteworthy: our late Member, Mr. Parry Jones, records it (Ent. Ree. 1930, p. sep. 43) as abundant in many parts of N. and N-midlands, one of the commonest Capsids in Notts. and local in Herts. There is a Norfolk record (Saunders' Heterop. Brit.

1892, 241) but doubtless in error, as we fail to find any corroboration throughout Trans. Norf. Nat. Society. On the Continent C. sexguttatus is confined to north and central Europe, being absent from the greater part of Russia and, excepting Italy, the whole Mediterranean region. It seems to be particularly fond of nettles when in flower, especially if just inside woods ; but I have also found it abundantly on umbels in at least four counties between 13 June and 1 August.

THREE BUGS N E W TO S U F F O L K . â&#x20AC;&#x201D; A Lygaeid new to Britain, Nysius punetipennis, H.-S., was introduced by Mr. China in the EMM. for January last. It was discovered in a sandy spot, amongst scanty Vegetation which included no heather, at Tuddenham Heath on 6-7 August 1937 by my friend Mr. Philip Harwood.

Close by, on young larches, Mr. Harwood found also Psallus luridus, Reut., a Capsid previously known in this country in only Glos, and Herts.

At Whitsun I paid a visit to the locality, but found the Lygasid to be in the nymph stage ; on 12 July, however, both species were there in abundance, and Odontoscelis dorsalis, Fab., also occurred. Another addition to Suffolk is Corizus ruf us, Schill., several speeimens of which I swept at Freckenham in the Augusts of 1934-5. These three new County records should be added at Trans, ii, p. 136 ; on the other hand, the records of Sehirus morio, L., must be deleted, as all refer to o. luctuosus, Muls., the former species is not British.â&#x20AC;&#x201D;E. C. BEDWELL, Hemiptera Recorder.

68

OBSERVATIONS.

A N ELUSIVE PLANT BUG.—In 1 8 3 4 the Pagets recorded, in their Nat. Hist. Yarmouth, only a couple of dozen out of the 462 kinds of Heteroptera now known as British ; but among the former is given " N. G. Abietis on a fir on Lound Heath ; common."

This is the Linnean species for which a New Genus was duly erected in 1839 by Prof. Westwood, who termed it Gastrodes (Hemiptera of Suffolk 1905, 7). That the Pagets' capture related to G. abietis, and not the ubiquitous G. ferrugineus, has always been strongly doubted because nobody succeeded in discovering the former anywhere in Suffolk (again ? ) for a füll Century, though it is now known from at least Hants, Surrey, Norfolk, four western counties and Scotland.

At long length Gastrodes abietis, L., turned up on Spruce-fir in New Delight Covert of Blythburgh Wood on 10 May last ; but I do not regard this as confirming the 1834 record, of which the ' common ' renders it almost certainly applicable to G. ferrugineus.

P S Y L L A ON SEA BUCKTHORN.—• It will interest our Homopterists to know that the species of this genus, Psylla phceoptera,Low, that was found new to Britain ( E M M . 1915, p. 205) at Thorpeby-Aldeburgh on 10 July 1914, is still common on bushes of Hippophoe rhamnoides there, where alone they appear to be indigenous in Suffolk. I beat it on 9 September last, in a stiff N N E . breeze. T h e late Mr. James Edwards told me in lit.

20 March 1915 that it " is a little larger, very much darker, and the male has different forceps from P. hippophces, Forst. Your Thorpe gathering proves what so far as I know has not been made clear before : that P. phasoptera and P. hippophaes sometimes occur together. Years ago I made a special journey to Winterton to get the latter, and have not seen its food plant growing wild since ; we have plenty of cultivated Hippophse here in Cheltenham, but so far I have not been able to find a Psylla on it." This species has occurred to me at Skegness in Lines on 7 June 1912 ; Hemsby in Norfolk on 9 June 1921 ; always with P. phaeoptera at Thorpe in Suffolk, 1914-38; and on 27 August 1935 I was glad to find it on cultivated Sea Buckthorn in gardens of Bawdsey manor-house.—CLAUDE MORLEY

THE ELM APHID.—The curious growth that I enclose was noticed when an Elm hedge was being cut here today. I made an incision with a pair of scissors in the green ' bag ', and only then did the little Insects begin to emerge. Can you furnish me with any details concerning them ?—M. E. DAY ; Coddenham, 2 July 1938. [The insects are Aphidae, called Schizonewa ulmi, L. (Trans, ii, p. 147), that pervert the Elm's sap and so form bag-like galls on the twigs. Considering the ubiquity of the tree, these perverters are comparatively rare, though now known from many SufFolk villages.—Ed.]

OBSERVATIONS.

69

ANOTHER SUFFOLK B I R D - L O U S E . — I f only some of our less squeamish Ornithologists would pay attention to the subject of Bird-parasites, there is no doubt we should rapidly reduce the number of those British Philopterinac listed at Trans ii 152 as unknown here. The three kinds added at Trans, iii, 83 and Gomocotes microthorax, Nitz (which swarms on every Partridge and was found thereon commonly at Kenton last Januarv)' bring the comital total up to no more than 23 species out of the British 217. All one has to do, if live Lice are to be avoided is to place the dead Bird, carefully noting its indentity, into a glass bowl and, after a couple of days or a week, give it a good beating that causes its now dead parasites to fall into the bottom ot the bowl, whence they are easily collected by a camel-hair brush and transferred to spirit or mounted on gummed card.

CHURCH DEPREDATORS.—A small and common, oak picture irame of 9J by 6» inches, with fairly well-fitting glass front and rough deal-board back, was hung on a nave wall of Monks boham church in 1915 (to exhibit list of names of past rectors) ihis was an extension of a similar List, placed in that frame in 1912, that was inserted behind the later List for future comparison and in 1915 remained entire, undamaged through three vears' exposure to light.

In 1938 the frame was examined because a few of the names were becoming illegible ; and it was tound that the entire surface of the later List, excepting usually that distastefully mked by the type-ribbon, was pitted by gnawings as though by smallpox, though in only a few places was the paper (thick typing-paper) actually pierced. Far otherwise was it with the covered 1912 sheet: here fully a quarter was non est and the centre of the remainder so riddled by irregulär gnawings as to render the type-writing quite illegible (cf. Proc.

Uct. 1938). The sole live Insects contained in the frame were a couple of Silver-fish (Ltpisma saccarhina, L.), usually reputed to subsist on the paste of old books though the gum of P.O. stampedging at each corner was untouched ; and these were certainly the depredators. Also a few innocuous and dead ThunderHies {Limothrips cerealium, L.) had found their way in mainly to the back of the gilt mount of pine ; and one Beetle's castskin looked like that of Anthrenus museorum, though no wood was bored. Occasional liberal rubbing with an oily rag is the sole method of excluding such Insect vandals.

WATER-FLIES AT L I G H T . — N o attention seems elsewhere paid to the Trichoptera which are attracted to artificial light and as the subject is one of no small interest, I will add some 1936 captures, named by our Recorder, to those already noticed in ine I ransactons. Several Limnophilus auricula, Ct. (cf. Trans ' l y l )> w e r e thus taken on Covehithe beach in September-

70

OBSERVATIONS.

a male L. flavicornis, Fab., with several male Agrypnia Pagetana, Ct., some female Ecnomus tenellus Rmb. (Trans, iii, p. lix) and many Tinodes Weeneri L., came at Fritton Lake on 12 August.

Both Cyinus flavidus, McL., which I have taken before at only Killaloe in Ireland, and Holocentropus stagnalis, Alb., turned up on the coast sandhills at Horsey in Norfolk on 14 August; and several Cyrnus trimaculatus, Ct., at Ladycross in the New Forest on 6 July. C. trimaculatus, T. Wceneii, Leptocerus aterrimus, Ste. and Molanna angustata, Ct., were all abundant at Fritton light at the end of May 1937, with the three other species already recorded at Trans, iii, p. cli.—CLAUDE M O R L E Y .

[A great many species of Trichoptera are strongly attracted by light, and systematic collecting in this manner might lead to quite unexpected captures, e.g. Cyrnus flavidus, McL., which I have from Wood Walton fen in Hunts, and should certainly occur in Suffolk. The Waterfly in my collection, erroneousy named by me P. brevipennis (Trans, i, p. 192), is correctly Stenophylax dubius, Steph. $ , a rarer kind taken a few vears ago in Windsor Forest.—K.J.M.] T H E F R I T I L L A R I E S OF B E N T L E Y WOODS.—With great pleasure I have been reading our Society's valuable ' M e m o i r ' on Suffolk Lepidoptera, at page 102 of which is a comment that puzzles me : it is remarked that Argynnis paphia, L., has been " later finally exstirpated by pheasants ;" and, as one who has had to do with rearing and shooting pheasants, I cannot at once see the connection between bird and butterfly. According to Frohawk's recent book,Paphia lays its egg in July on the trunk of oak-trees, " about from four to five feet above the ground ;" immediately after emerging therefrom " in the beginning of August," the young larva enters into hibernation and does not descend from the tree until " the end of March." I think it very unlikely that pheasants, which inhabit a wood between July and April, could locate a minute larva in a chink of oakbark so far above the ground. By the end of shooting season, 31 January, there are (nowadays, for certain reasons) usually very few pheasants left in any wood ; and by the end of March, i.e. before the infant larvae descend from the oak-tree, the birds have paired and left the wood. A hen-pheasant nests in hedgerows, usually within easy flight of the wood in which she wintered; and the last place she would take her brood, between April and July, is the dark heart of a wood wherein Dog-violets, and upon them Paphia-larvse, grow : sunlight is essential to young pheasants, as to most young animals, and also in the wood are neither Leather-jackets nor Wireworms.—Very few pheasants remain in woods tili late January, because the owner of the shoot finds it more economical to kill off all his birds, and then buy eggs in April from a game-farm : which eggs are placed under cooped

71 barr.yard fowls infieldsat some distance from a wood, which the young pheasants do not enter tili Paphia is upon the wing.

Such owners as do not breed, buy young birds from the gamefarm in August, turn then down in the wood and feed them regularly in order to keep them upon that preserve. As by August Paphia is in egg on oak-tree, I cannot think of any period in the year when it would be in danger from pheasants. This Fritillary is abundant in a certain wood of some 350 acres in Cambridgeshire which is, and has been now for some years, heavily stocked with pheasants ; yet the Butterfly is as common therein as in the New Forest.—On the other hand, a wood near my house is never shot, and contains no pheasants ; in it Paphia occurred sparingly tili 1935, during which year I saw only one, and by 1936 it was certainly extinct. Soit seems to me that Paphia, like Polychloros, is leaving some of its old haunts, and that its passing has nothing to do with pheasants : to compensate for its loss, Sibylla has begun to take its place, at least in this part of Britain.—PHILIP B. M. ALLAN ; 28 January 1938 (cf.

Trans, iii, p. clxxvii).

OBSERVATIONS.

T H E GORLESTON Polyommatus minimus.—I have seen ' The Lepidoptera of Suffolk ' : truly a record of the heyday of collecting, now past. Please correct my record of the Small Blue (p. 112) : the specimen is still extant and I well remember sweeping it up with my net as itflutteredover the pavement by 84 Springfield Road in Gorleston as I was Coming home in August 1921.—E. A. E L L I S , Norwich Museum; 14 May 1938.

NEW

LOCALITY

FOR

PURPLE

EMPEROR

AND

PINE

HAWK.—

This year I have twice stayed with your newMember, Mr. Webster, at Westleton ; and herewith send you a list of our captures [the best are incorporated in ' Addenda et Corrigenda,' supra.— Ed.] during both July and September. Large numbers of Moths were taken, particularly on the night of 19 July, when I eventuallv went to bed with well over two hundred specimens in the room, attracted by light! Mr. Webster is sure he saw one Apatura Iris, L., in the woods of that district during July and on 17-18 September I suggested working for Sphinx pinastri, L-, with the result that we beat three fully fed and one halfgrown larvae from Scots Fir ; we beat none out of Austrian Pine : do they feed on it ? [Canon Waller has proved they prefer to die.] I took Smerinthus tilioe on birch, Populi on black-poplar and Ocellatus on sallow.—CLIFFORD CRAUFURD, Hon. See. Bishops Stortford Nat. Hist. Soc.; 16 Oct. 1938.

FRANCE IN JUNE.—We have been a month at Ste. Marine near r mistere and turn homewards tomorrow. The weather has been perfect, with glorious sunshine, blue sea and sky, and

72

OBSERVAL IONS.

temperature very often in the 80os, but not close as in England.

I have seen various Insects, e.g. one Papilio Podalirius, seve Machaon, Colias edusa quite common, Macroglossa also common and I watched one oviposting on Galium verum, whence I collected a few eggs. Also noticed the blue Horntail [Sirex noctilio, Fab.] Aying along, Gloivworms below ou room window, and those lovely large green Lizards [Lacerta virid L.] in the garden. Everything here very cheap, owingtothe rate of exchange ; the prices are almost the same as last year in francs, but there are 178, instead of 110, to the Here are a few that strike me :—Strawberries 2|d. a pound ; Raspberries ditto ; Cream ld. for a teacup-full; Cherries lkl. a pound; large Mackerei ld. a piece ; large Soles 7d. each. As for the hotels, we paid about 12/6 for two good dinners, a splendid doublebedroom, hot-cold water, breakfast and garage : in England the same thing would be at least 30s. In addition I got 30s.-worth of petrol for nothing. [Surely the great and silent Landes, where Biscay rolls, is the place for us next year !—Ed.] There was nothing doing in the New Forest last May : too dull, and I hardly saw the sun. One Argynnis Paphia larva has pupated as a lovely chrysalis, with glistening metallic gold markings. Best wishes to the Society.—C. H. S. VINTER ; 30 June.

MOTHS AT BECCLES IN MARCH.—I thinkapairofSeleniabilunaria, Esp., taken on 9th were füll early ; the same delightful night was thick with Hybernia marginaria, Bkh. On 16th a Hydrio miata, L., of such perfection that it might have emerged that day, was seen among scores of newly-emerged male Monima gothica, L., all clinging head downward to bare twigs in a short Stretch of hedge. One M. gracilis, Fab., appeared on 24th, a fortnight earlier than I have seen it here in previous years. A female H. suffumata, Hb., of the 30th, looked as though it had been out some time ; and the next day was seen ourfirstButterfly of the year, Pieria rapoe, L., though its appearance in March m often be due to the pupa's exposure in a sunny spot.—ERNEST T. GOLDSMITH ; 8 April. [We are glad to have this record of P. rapae at the end of March, as it exactly parallels the same forward month in 1893, of which we published some account in Science Gossip 1893, p. 127 : that year M. gothica was on the wing by 5th.—Ed.]

Spodoptera exigua, HB., A NOCTUID MOTH NEW TO SUFFO This year I collected at Iken, whence I had already observed 280 species of Macro-lepidoptera withinfifteenSquare miles, from 26 July tili 29 August and noticed 153 species. One of these was S. exigua, Hüb., of which I took four specimens at light an rushes and grass-heads, the first on 1 August, which forestall those found the next month (C. GARRETT JONES).—One netted,

OBSERVATIONS.

73

Aying to clover at Needham Market by day, on 18 August male was netted, Aying very feebly (pace Meynck) like Hydriomena obeliscata, H b , which occured with lt, seven feet high over a moth-lamp in Wangford Wood near Southwold at 9 p.m. on 22 September. A female was taken

by Member Geo. Baker, sucking sticky spiders-web on a gorsebush, with Glareosa, Xanthographa, Segetum, &c. on Benacre Denes at 9.30 p.m. on 24th (in coli. Burton, who is rearing larvase from it on 27 October, forced by an electric-light bulb). At the same place a seventh specimen with silvery stigma was netted

by Member Goddard, Aying just like the Wangford one though over httle but the grass Festuca ovina, L , at 9.45 on 29 September when none came to hght, sugar or gorse-webs. Of this distinct species Newman's figure from Freshwater is excellent but South's quite useless. It is said to be on the wing during both May and September ; and a polyphagous larva, feeding on Ononis Hantago, Taraxicum, groundsel, &c, in June and October; Kirby (GEOFFREY BURTON).—One

.

Convolvulus growing in damp places, where the larva spins a slight cocoon among moss. No Noctuid is broader distributed : in India it is a pest on indigo, in south Africa on pigweed and in nearetie America on beet. In Britain it is usually regardedas Immigrant from the warmer climes of Europe frequentest along the south coast from Cornwall to north of Essex (Mem. p. 22), but spreading to Yorks, Lancs and Cheshire. t nis year large numbers,' says our Member, Dr. de Worms ln t h e Entomologist for O c t , have appeared along the south MORLEY

3 N D

SEPT

"'

W

'TH

3

FEW

M

°RE

'N

SURRE

Y-—'CLAUDE

ASSEMBUNG.—None of the books that I have mention that ^astropacha quereifolia, L „ ' assembles.' Last night, about o n 17 July. a fine male came fluttering round acage in which was a newly-emerged female. Also, I have noticed that Zygcena ßitpendulas, L , seem to possess the same susceptibility; for a tew days ago, after liberating a large number of unwanted Dred specimens, I placed their empty tin on the grass and soon atterwards found three or four males inside the tin My "ite has often taken such bred examples out to liberale them "a>-s t h a t she, too, has been repeatedly followed by a large number of males while carrying their box across the meadow to H 1 ¥ Z U n J - w h e r e t h e y habitually Ay. From some eight lunared Z. fikpendula cocoons, collected near my house, emerged eventeen of the pale-orange form, as well as one that showed •is paie coloration upon its hind wir.gs.—GEORGE J . BAKER"eyaon, Southwold.

^

namiif Seve l l 01

H A R W O O D S ' CAPTURES.—Very many thanks for Ichneumonidas; the box arrived quite safely. >' o u r determinations I ought to have recognised myself

74

OBSERVATIONS.

but in each case they vary a little from those I possess. I quite well remember taking the Ctenichneumon amputatorius that you return [Trans. 1936, 144] : it was with one or two other species, Amblyteles negatorius &c., beneath Restharrow on Tuddenham Heath which I was tapping for Heliothis larvae and then examining the sand underneath. My brother [Philip] was at Braemar, Aviemore, Nethy Bridge and Loch Marn at end of May and most of J u n e : he took Stenichneumon castaneus, Odontomerus dentipes, Ischnocerus rusticus and a small [dissectorius, Pz.] species of Metopius. Heliothis dipsacea larvae are very scarce this year, one cannot find a suitable Spot; but [Harmodia] irregularis was in good numbers.—From 17th to end of July I was at Bournemouth, but had poor weather so got no further than the New Forest, except for one day at Swanage that was too windy for anything but [Pamphila] Actaeon, and an evening at Chesil Beach which proved a failure. On the whole I did not get much I wanted, most of the best being Single specimens, or only one and two. One Crabro signatus, one Odynerus crassicornis female, two or three Agenia, one Hedychrum nobile [Trans, iii, 138] female, two Maliota cimbiciformis, one very poor, at bramble-flowers in Denny Wood, three male Chrysops quadrata and one Zodion cinereum, were among the best things. Beating for larvEe was useless ; but [Schrankia] turfosalis was common in the evening in some of the bogs : unfortunately I had no opportunity to set many at once and they will not bear keeping. There was also a Eupaecilia very like E. (Euxanthis] angustana and perhaps that species : if so, it is common at Fleam Dyke in Cambs.—Just before 17th Gilles and I found Catoptria [Eucosma] citiana at Freckenham, but I did not recognise it tili I got home; we also took one each of E[phestia] passulella [Barrett. = cahiritella, Zell.].

Rubicata [Leptomeris rubiginata, Huf.] has been scarce this season though several have turned up in the daytime ; it does not fly naturallv tili just before dusk, and then for only a half-hour at most: I think, considering the season, 7 August is a bit early for it.

At Worlington Sulphuralis [Emmelia trabealis, Scop.] was pretty common then ; Wheeler and I both got ova, he has three pupae but I do not know if I have any. Cinctalis [Loxostegeverticalis, L.] was not infrequent, and I got three [Evergestis] extimalis.

In Cambs Wheeler and I got females of [Eustrotia] argentula, and the ova have just hatched. I am also feeding four of those large case-bearing Fumea [Pachythelia villosella, Ochs.] from Hants and Dorset: curious-looking things, whose cases are more interesting than the insects within them ! A few days ago we took nearly a dozen [Caradrina] subtusa just on the Essex side of the Stour here, but administratively in Suffolk ; I have some of their ova, and shall try the same place for [Orthosia] ocellaris in due course.—B. S. HARWOOD, Fern Villa, Melford Road, Sudbury; 16 August 1931.

75

OBSERVATIONS.

MIDGET PEPPERED-MOTH.—SO late in that abnormal season of 1936 as 26 September was beaten from an oak-tree at Westleton Heath a little more than half-grown larva, which continued to feed right into mid-October and did not pupate tili 20th. Its chrysalis measured 16 mm. in length, besides the tvpically bifurcate anal spike. In the course of the following May emerged a remarkably small male Biston betularius, L., no more than 34 mm. in expanse (normal minimum is 45), of a form intermediate between the typical and Doubledayarius though inclining to the latter in even so utterly rural a locality. I captured a similar male, of slightly under 40 mm., at an Ipswich light in 1893.

EUCOSMA (PÄ-DISCA) SORDIDANA,

Hüb.—The

larva

of

this

Tortricid feed on Alder in May and are parasitised by the Ichneumon Agrypon canaliculatum, Hlg. (lehn. Brit. v, 254).

The Moths fly about Alders in September and October, or earlier according to Meyrick who regards the species as local, though it is " not uncommon in fenny and marshy districts " throughout England (Barrett, E M M . x, 4). Hitherto known in Suffolk solely from Barsham, where it was noted by Dr. Crowfoot sometime after 1890. Towards the end of last September the imagines were to be had in great profusion in the marshes of the Easton River at South Cove, both by beating the luxuriant masses of Alder bushes by day (along with the final females of Hemimene simpltciana, Haw.) and at Member George Baker's moth-lamp on the edge of their carrs by the reed-beds after dark : a halfdozen flew on to the sheet on 19th in the course of an hour.

It is easily mistaken at night for Peronea sponsana, Fab. (not seen throughout 1938) and occurs at the same time of year in similar boggy places ; but it is all-over browner, with the costa much more arcuate.—CLAUDE MORLEY. HABITS OF Epischnia Farrella, CURT.—The larva;, found on the Suffolk coast, feed in the pods of Lathyrus maiitimus, Big., tk u r e f u l l " f e d between the middle and end of September, though sometimes rather earlier. They there spin up a delightful httle round white ' tent,' in which they hybernate. In early spring they eat a small hole through their winter quarters and <-rawl out, but apparently do not feed any more before final pupation. They readily escape, however, when in confinement: placed twenty larva? in an ordinary wooden breeding-cage S3nd se^h" ^ ' P e b b ] e s > pea-haum, etc. to form a miniature a-beach ; but, alas ! the warmth of last March created a small rack m the wooden door, and through this the larva all departed. ton° S ^ • d l d g e t t h r o u g h satisfactorily were kept in a glasstln cov ' f r 0 m w h i c h t h e y c o u l d find n o e x i t - Emergence 3cons,derabl on T e period : the first imago this vear appeared Waldrineeldand

^

^

2 4

JUL

Y-~(CANON)

A

*

R

WALLER ;

76

OBSERVATIONS.

BROAD DISTRIBUTION OF SOME SUFFOLK LEPIDOPTERA — When collecting butterflies and moths in only England, it hard to distinguish the locally common, from the generally common, kinds. The following species, numbered as in our Society's 1937 Memoir, inhabit both Suffolk and the Syrian-Iraqan desert; adaptability to such different surroundings is to be found only in a few Lepidoptera and I regard them, therefore, as the most generally common ones of the Palaearctic Zone: some, indeed, extend beyond that zone and both 738 and 1395 attain a geopolitan ränge, though I hesitate to call them cosmopolitan until recorded from the moon, planets or stars ! (A) Species resident in Suffolk and the Desert:—79 quadripunctata, 117 ypsilon, 124 segetum, 129 puta, 151 pronuba, 234 tiifolii, 276 trabealis, 284 gamma, 738 noctuella, 1395 maculipennis. (B) Species resident in the Desert but immigrant to Suffolk :—15 pulchella, 113-4 armiger and pelligei , 549 lineata, 613 cardai, 614 edusa. (C) Species migrant to both Suffolk and the Desert :— 464 sacaria 544 stellatarum, 554 convolvuli.

There are thus only ten species able to permanently reside in both Suffolk and the Desert; of these nine, shown under A, can be regarded as our most generally common kinds, omitting E. trabealis which is peculiar to desert, steppe, or Breck lands. They represent only a fraction of the Desert's total population : lest any Member should imagine Desert lepidoptera to be few in number, I should S t a t e that I have taken in it about seventy different species of Noctuids (or Agrotids, as the purists now say) alone, of which only nine are also recorded from Suffolk : these two figures refer to simple records, whether of residents or migrants. Desert fauna is naturally more specialised than that of Suffolk but, even so, about half of these seventy are not peculiar to Desert country, being widely distributed through the southern part of the Palaearctic Zone. Geometrids, predominantly woodland moths, are far less numerous proportionately, while Pyralids are even more numerous in the Desert than Noctuids, though the above figures do not hint this, owing to the absence of all except one from Suffolk.

It is noteworthy that most of the above species, even the majority of those that can justifiably be called resident Suffolcians, are also well-known migrants; and interesting to observe that, while 151 pronuba seems able to dwell in real Desert, 138 Rhyacia xanthographa is n o t : the latter occurs, indeed, in Bagdad but in only shady and well-watered orchards.

The same is true of 241 oleracea, in contrast with 234 trifolti which often swarms in the salt patches of the Desert. Similarly, though certain extra-English Pierid butterflies breed in the Desert, I do not think such can be said of 648 P. rapce that is so common in towns and fields in Iraq. Rapce is, however, less

OBSERVATIONS.

77

selective that 649 brassicce, entirely absent from the plains of Iraq and only to be found in the mountains. 651 Patilio Machaon occurs m Iraqan gardens, marshes and some Desert h.ll-tops, but not in the flatter desert generally.-E. P. WILTSHIRE, KK.b.b., British Consulate, Ahwaz, Iran; 17 April 1938. n f S J T T ° F F , L . I E S - I n L C 0 ^ q u e n c e of our Convention of 8 March I an sending you herew.th about a couple of hundred Flies that have been congregating so numerously upon the ceihngs and windows of my house in Hoxne as to constitute a nuisance. I shall feel grateful if you can teil me how ta get nd of them : there are still masses in my three front rooms A. T . BLAND, F . A . I . , H o x n e ; 10 M a r c h

1938.

[The

enclosed

insects are mainly the Gout-fly, Chloropisca glabra, Mg., a species always abundant in country houses during Octobe^nd November but more rarely noted in spring: we remember seeing vast assembl.es in a Herls house during Oct. 1900, and they are no

oTcil £ r i S inn a th' T h f e i r j T f f i ' H k e t h 3 t " f t h e usctnus fnt, I.inn three of which accompany them here are lnjunous to com by eating out the centres of the stalks and so preventing the ears from ripening. Another single Fly is Phorbia March^ V, • ' a manure-feeder, often seen bask ng n March sunshine on tree-trunks. With them came a dozen Hymenoptera, four-winged Chalcids, called Perilampus angustus 3 t u e P a r a S l t i C ° n D e a t h - w a t c h Beetles and always o esSt • present: is any house contam.ng old timbers or furniture. Their eradication from sitting-rooms is most expeditiously effected by persuading a half-gale to blow and then opening all doors and windows to allow a through draft, which will them off hke the most virulent contagion ! All Insects hate wind - E d ™ AN

OVERLOOKED

SUFFOLK

CRANE-FLY.—In

the

' Hinte™

Mr E A A t m o r e ^ f > ^ ^ ^ T « * ^ r r v , Atmore of Kings Lynn and your Hon Secretarv N a t " ; S 0 C " 1 9 t 1 5 ' S U P P 1 - 2 ? ) ^ e LimnobTd D ?

W C o u n t ^ T ' L ' i i S i r ' T C e d f r o m o n ' y Button in the l 3 t e r 11 b e e n c a P t u r e d a t Catfield mSh S S flWherem flymg 0 V e r ° P e n f e n b y myself on 2 June 1932 (TKTL J (a backward season, as noted in our Trans, ii p x x x i v W n d t h l Ä i U 9 3 5 D r f g h , t y W h i l C flying t h e r C - earty from Ge w o o H r ^ ' UJ',F' X X X i v ) ; a l s o k i s r e P o r t « d observed in c; ff , Cumber and (1. c „ p. clv). Though never w hTs l ' i S 8 ^ ^ " 1 6 ' " \h°U,d h a v e hence along 1 n o i c d l o n g ago (Tran S g E n t o i ^ S o c 1897 n ; 1 7 Seafoi-d in 1 ' P' 3 4 3 ) l f r o m S w e d e n > Germanyand France; Hicklbg and Orm«h ^ I T f Essex near S c l e s h S ^1broads' a n d " the Waven e ; Beccles bndge m Suffolk: though not then known from

78

OBSERVATIONS.

Yorks. Its asrial larvae are described, loc. cit., and said to feed upon the Mosses Hypnum elodes, Spr., Amblystegium exannulatum (H. fluitans, L.) and Fontinalis antipyietica, L., all Suffolcian kinds, teste Mayfield in 1930.

T H E SHEEP FLY.—• With reference to a letter we published in the Daily Mail, our old correspondent Mr. C. J. Watkins of Painswick, writes : I was visiting a friend on his farm a few miles from Gloucester in August, when his flock of sheep was badly attacked in the fleece by a Dipteron. Desirous to know the exact species, I went with him among the flock and, while he held some of the afflicted animals, I succeeded in capturing examples of the female fly from the wool, where they were in the act of egg-laying. In some cases I saw larvse actually at their injurious work, feeding just under the hide which one could consequently lift up in large flaps. The sight made me feel quite unwell; and I shall ever remember my search for the Sheep Fly ! I saw at once that it belonged to the genus Lucilla; and a careful examination of those secured proved the species to be the smaller Green Bottie, L. sericata, Mg. T R U E ' SMOKE FLIES.'—While strolling through the Rhinefield Sandys part of the New Forest on 9 June this year, I happened upon an area of some five acres that had been cleared of timber the previous winter and every tree, oak and beech and Spanish chestnut, was lopped and lying prone upon the ground. Piles of boughs and brushwood had been burned and left black patches here and there, of which but a single one still smouldered and occasionally burst into small flames : because here the fire had lain hold of a large subterranean root, and so outlived more superficial ones. In the füllest blast of this wood-smoke, on the leeward side of holes through which it was rising from the root, hovered and settled unhesitatingly the small Platypezid Dipteron, Microsania pectinipennis, Mg., on to very warm and in some cases quite hot wood-ashes. Whereever they settled they sat contentedly, as though thoroughly enjoying the unnatural warmth: so placidly, in fact, that a box could easily be placed over them, up which they all did not at once take the trouble to run. In one case a pair was taken in copula in this manner. T h e flies have a peculiarly strong life in them, like Burnets ; in the Cyanide bottle they lived far longer than Nepticula's quarter-minute, though naturally much briefer than a Sphinx' 3 | minutes. The genus was unnoticed in Britain tili 1926 ; and our species is now known from Herts, Essex, Surrey, Kent, Berks, Dorset and Brecknock (Journ. Soc. Brit. Entom. 1934, i, 31) but this is its first record from Hants, where there occurred closely associated with it and equally attracted by the smoke a species of the Empid genus Hilaia in much greater numbers.

OBSERVATIONS.

79

SUFFOLK T A C H I N I D FLIES : some N E W to the County.—Our old friend, M r . Colbran J. Wainwright, F.E.S., has just been so good as to look through recent captures of these interesting parasites upon Moth's caterpillars and his determinations bring forward several kinds hitherto unrecorded in our List (Tr Norf Nat. Soc. 1915, Suppl. p. 94 & T r . Suff. Nat. Soc. 1932, p. 43)!

Paraphoroceta (Ceromasia) senilis, Mg., frequent in September on Southwold reeds in 1912 and at Blythbro Wood in 1929.

Lydella (Ceromasia) stabulans, Mg., Brandon staunch on Little Ouse in May 1929. Phryno (Exorista) vetula, Mg., an abundant parasite of Lepidoptera; Assington Thicks (B. S. Harwood) and always common at Bentley Woods on oak trunks in late May. Epicampocera succincta, Mg., Wangford Wood, September 1929. Phryxe (Blephaiidea) vulgaris, Fln., Sudbury (Harwood) ; bred from Lepidoptera at Bury in 1937 (Allen); Brandon staunch, May 1929. Compsilura concinnata, Mg., (Phorocera serriventris, Rd.) bred from Clisiocampa neustria, L., at Sudbury (Harwood) and a male from the cocoon of some oak-feeding moth-larva at Gorleston in May 1933 (Doughty). Phorocera (.Bothria) ccesifrons, Mcq., commonly Aying low among birchbushes in Bentley Woods in mid-May 1929-30.

Stomatomyia acuminata, Rdt., N E W to Suffolk, specimens were by no means rare, sitting on Sizewell sandhills by the sea on 25 August 1936 : S. filipalpis, Rnd., is not British. Mintho rufiventris, Fln (prasceps of Verr. List), N E W to Suffolk, a female flew in to Monks Soham house in sun at 3 p.m. on 16 Sept. 1934 and males on 7 & 31 August 1938. Pelatachina tibialis, Fln.| Sudbury (Harwood); several males at Brandon staunch on 31 May 1929 (exhibited before SNS. on 1 June—Proc. 1929, p. xiv). Macquartia dispar, Fln. N E W to Suffolk, on fennel-flower at Dunwich, 1 June 1905. Macquartia prcefica, Mg., N E W to Suffolk, on Silaus-flower in copula at Blakenham chalk pit on 20 August 1929. Bithia spreta, Mg., several on flowers with the last. Eriothrix rufimaculatum, DeG. (Olivieria lateralis, F.), abundant on thistles at Sudbury (Harwood) and all over Suffolk in autumn ; one attracted to light at Fritton Lake on 17 Aug. 1935. Ernestia (Erigone) radica, Fab., everywhere on flowers in August, Blakenham, Monks Soham, &c. Fabriciella ferox, i anz., N E W to Suffolk at Brandon on 25 July 1937 (NB. This is E. tessellata of Trans, iii, p. 297, whereof no authentic British examples exist, though Cambridge Museum has two males alleged to come from the Devils Dyke, a quarter-mile outside •^uffolk). Voria (Plagia) ruralis, Fln., Blythbro Wood on 16 September 1929. Ptychoneura lufitarsis, Mg., N E W to Suffolk.

-Monks Soham window on 23 June 1929. Actia (Thryptocera) p'lipennü, Fln. (reducta, Vill.), N E W to Suffolk on Heracleumnowers with males of the Bee Halictus leucopus, Kirby, at Hopton cliff on 2 August 1925. Phyto melanocephala, Mg., beaten from

80

OBSERVATIONS.

Westhall hedges on 21 May 1932. Dinera grtsescens, Fln., abundant on Chamomile-flowers at that delightful spot, John All Alone in Harkstead, on 22 July 1926. Melanophora ruralis, L., Bawdsey cliff on 4 August 1936. Brachycoma devia, Fln., Monks Soham garden and sometimes indoors, May and August.

Rhinuphora (Clista) lepida, Mg., Lakenheath Warren on 25 July 1937.

Onesia sepulchralis, L., several on Hieracium-flowers at Stuston Common on 14 May 1928. Sarcophaga offuscata, Shin. (Tr. ii, 44), Bawdsey cliff on 4 August 1936. S. nigriventris, Mg. (loc. cit.), Brandon sitting on bare sand on 30 August 1921 ; and five males and females bred in June 1935 out of a dead Whelk, Buccinnum undatum, Linn., from Ramsholt in May 1935.

Sarcophila latifrons, Fln. NEW to Suffolk, bred in 1936 from its own puparium found blowing loose on the sandhills at Southwold on 26 September 1935. Metopia leucocephala, Ross., parasitic in burrows of the Bee Colletes Daviesana, Sm., at Lowestoft in 1923 (EMM. 1924, 21); Town-street, Brandon on 21 July 1937. At E M M . 1938, p. 156, Mr. Wainwright sinks Phorocera incerta, Meade, as synonymous with Blepharomyia amplicornis, Zett., citing my capture at Belstead on 26 April 1897.

Here are seven species of Tachinidae new to Suffolk, whose Diptera List now stands at 1926 named kinds of Flies.—CLAUDE MORLEY.

HORN-TAIL W A S P S ' EARLY

RECORD.—"SirThomasGeryCullum

Bart., F.L.S., exhibited specimens of the Sirex juveticus Linn., and a piece of Scotch Fir (Pinus sylvestris) which had been perforated by it. These were communicated to Sir Thomas by the Countess of Stradbroke, who informed him that nearly two hundred trees of the Scotch Fir have been destroyed by this insect in the Earl of Stradbroke's woods, at Henham-Hall, in Suffolk.

It is stated, that the man who has the superintendence of the woods has for some time observed the trees in a part of the park to be more or less sickly ; but until within the last three or four years he had attributed the decay of the trees to the poverty of the s o i l " (Trans. Linn. Soc. xiv, 1825, p. 584: Minutes of 20 April 1824). " NATURE CARELESS OF THE INDIVIDUAL."—In warm days the habitations of Ants may by seen to swarm with winged males and females. Sometimes the swarms of a whole district unite their infinite myriads, and produce an effect resembling the flashing of an aurora borealis. After this danse de l'amour, that many males and females become the prey of fish I am enabled to assert from my own Observation : In the beginning of August 1812 1 was going up the Orford River in Suffolk in a row-boat, in the evening, when my attention was caught by an infinite number of zoinged Ants, at which the fish were everywhere darting.

81

OBSERVATIONS.

floating alive upon the surface of the water. While passing the river these had probably been precipitated into it, either by the wind or a heavy shower which had just fallen (Introd. Entom., cap. xvii, b y WILLIAM

KIRBY).

Vespa Crabro AND Bombus.—Early in this season my gardener at Kettleburgh saw a queen Hörnet attack a Bumble-bee. H e killed the former, and then f o u n d the latter to be alreadv dead : apparently slain outright or, possibly, simplv paralized by the Hörnet in order to be put into the larder for her grubs.—STANLEY T . CRIBB ; 5 Sept. 1938. [Interest of this incident lies in the fact that no association is u p o n record between these two large Hymenoptera.—Ed.] NEST OF RARE WASP NEAR BUNGAY.—A W a s p s ' n e s t w a s g i v e n

me by one of the ladies of All Hallows, Ditchingham, found vvhen an Arbor Vita tree was cut down. I attributed it to Vespa Brittanica [Britannica, Leach, Zool. Mise, i, 111 = Norvegica, Fab. (of. T r a n s , iii, 52 and p. cliv)] on account of its size. I should think it was six or eight inches in diameter. I have never seen so large a tree-wasps' n e s t ; but does the C o m m o n Wasp ever make its nest in trees, i.e. not hollow ones ? [No.] If so it might belong to the common species. It was somewhat damaged before I reeeived it, and got still more injured on its journey to Ipswich M u s e u m . I fear no insects were found with it. I t was placed between two horizontal branches of the tree and attached to the lower one.—Believe m e to remain yours faithfully W . M . CROWFOOT, Blyburgate House, Beccles ; 5 Sept. 1911 [a very hot and great Wasp year, in which at least two women, a small child and a valuable horse died of their stings in England]. In mid-September the surveyor of Aldeburgh " during three days destroyed no less than twentyone nests in Aldeburgh. Several other nests have been located, and will be destroyed this week " (Local Paper, 14 Sept. 1911)].

MORE W I L D HONEY B E E S . — A s t r o n g n e s t of Apis mellifica,

L . , was.

in füll working order on 25 August last in a Woodpecker's hole just seven feet above the ground in a moribund young Black Poplar tree beside a dry ditch in the woods bordering upon Wangford Fen, one of the loneliest spots of Suffolk, a füll mile from both W r angford and Lakenheath, as far from Palmers Heath northward with nothing but Lakenheath Warren stretching southward.—CLAUDE

MORLEY.

[Staverton,

at

Trans,

iii,

p.

287,

's w r o n g : — " T h e honeycomb I exhibited at Proc. 1936, ci, came from Felsham hall (adjoining Monks Park) Wood. T h e complete comb, evidently the work of a vigorous swarm the previous season, was attached to the upper boughs of a felled oak and was quite the largest and finest series of combs possible.

82

OBSERVATIONS.

I wish it could have been carefully removed by sawing away the branches, as it would have made a first rate exhibit for any museum. It was roughly circular in shape, had a maximum diameter of some five feet and a thickness of cells of about fourteen inches."—F. W. SIMPSON ; 5 Jan. 1938.]

HYMENOPTERON NEW TO BRITAIN.—Encyrtus interpunctus, Dalm.

Act. Holm, i, 1820, p. 157 ; Pterom. Suec. 35 ; Nees, Hym. lehn. Äff. ii, 1834, p. 259,?. The former describes it thus: "A shining and nigriseneous species. Head luteous with Vertex narrow and rosy, at eye-margins finely punetulate ; frons paler and subsemicircularly impressed at the centrally tuberculate scrobes. Antennae emitted below centre of frons, ferrugineous with apices black and a white band on fifth and sixth joints that is nigrescent beneath ; scape incrassate and shorter than half flagellum. Pleural laminse black and dull; metathorax laterally greenish and strongly shining. Scutellum neither triangular nor particularly deplanate. Legs black with the tarsi and apices of the dull femora rufescent; tibiae dark ferrugineous, centrally infuscate; and all tarsal apices black. Wings infumate with a broad white fascia, containing three or four infuscate serial dots, beyond Stigma ; ramulus and subcostal nervure nigrescent.

Length 2\ mm. J unknown. Taken by Boheman in Smoland," Sweden ; unknown to Nees. My female was beaten, with the beetle Scymnus pulchellns, Hbst., from old ivy in a lane at Frostenden, Suffolk, on 11 May 1938.—In my 1910 Catalogue of British Chalcididae, published by the British Museum, this species is to be inserted at page 23 ; and also in our Trans, iii, p. 141, along with Ageniaspis fuscicollis, Dalm., bred from Hyponomeuta rorella, Hb., at Worlingham last year (Entom.

1937, p. 211).

THE ICHNEUMON Ophion minutus, KRIECH., COMMON.—This species has been hitherto accounted rare in Britain (lehn. Brit., vol. v, p. 276) and but one recorded from Suffolk (Trans, iii, 228).

Such a supposition, however, is based on ignorance of its nocturnal habits ; for, on 12 May 1938, males flew so freely to a Mothlamp in Wangford Wood near Southwold that many were ignored after a füll series had been secured : no female was noted. Another male came in to light about the same time, 11 p.m., on 30 April 1932 at Monks Soham. South gave me a female he had bred from Hybernia aurantiaria, and this Ophion is doubtlesshabitually parastic upon autumnal species of that genus.-—CLAUDE MORLEY. CLOTHES M O T H S ' PARASITE.—Some months ago I happened to notice in a room of my house a number of encased larvas of what I take to be Tinea pellionella, L., on the walls and ceiling.

I put them into a glass tube . . . and forgot them ! Now I find

OBSERVATIONS.

83

that the Moths have emerged and died ; but among them are two Ichneumonids, which can only have come from these larvae.

On the chance of their being of interest, I send them herewith, and three of the Moths in case my identification is wrong. The parasites seem to me extraordinarily large to prey on so small a host.—OSWOLD H . LATTER, The Elms, Charterhouse Road, Godalming; 14 Aug. 1938. [The last circumstance caused me to suppose this parasitic Polyclistus mansuetor, Grav., to attack the larger Moth Pyralis farinalis, L. (Ichneumons Brit., vol. iv, p. 27). Indeed it may do so also, for both the specimens sent by our quondam Member are quite small and at most 3 mm. long, though I find them by dissection to be females.

The host is correctly named, and our record (Trans, i, 101) thus confirmed.—Ed.] Two ICHNEUMONS NEW TO SUFFOLK.—A 5 of Platylabus dimidiatus, Gr., was sitting in the sun on an early-expanded flower of Ivy upon the wall of Covehithe's ruined church on 16 September last. Though the species has not been hitherto observed in this County (add both kinds at Trans, iii, p. 145), it is by no means rare, preying upon smaller Geometers and Depressaria-moths, in Britain and probably only overlooked here. I knew it in 1903 from N. Wales, Worcs, Norfolk, Essex, Herts, Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Devon, Cornwall, S.W. Ireland and the Channel Isles (lehn. Brit. i, 234). It certainly hibernates in the perfect State, both here and abroad ; and I have taken a large speeimen sitting in the sun on a garden-wall at 9 a.m. on 2 April 1931 at Antibes on the Riviera.—A small 2 of Platylabus dolorosus, Gr. (1. c., p. 226 ), only 7 | mm. in length, was attracted by a moth-lamp in the marshes of the Easton River at South Cove near Southwold on 19th of that month, and taken on the sheet at 9 p.m. true time. This is a much rarer insect than the last, both abroad whence I have it from Germany, and England vvhere it is known merely from the London district and Sussex, bred from Hydriomena silaceata, Hb. In November 1904 the late Mr. G. T . Lyle presented me with a pair that he had bred jrorn forced Brockenhurst pupae, the <? from Boarmia consortaria, 28 Februar RUh' y P r e c e d i n g a n d the $ from Ectropis luridata, DKh., four days later : no confusion of these hosts is suggested by him.—CLAUDE

MORLEY.

1cn«N°THER G R E A T S q u i d - — 1 ° n t h e morning of 20 October iViö two fishermen, of a half- century's experience, in an eighteentoot fishmg punt, were trawling for Soles off the South Barnard «uov, four miles east of Southwold : the sea's depth at that point ® n o t stated. Attention was first attracted by one man exclaiming at

K

3t

that

great

head

-'

T h e

boat

's

en

gines were

running

the time and would, presumably, drown any sound made

84

OBSERVATIONS.

by the animal. T h e sea was calm and trawl working, when he saw a head emerge from the water which ' gave us a look,' implying the possession of an eye. It was about forty yards from the boat, yet seemed to be towering over it and swimming towards Covehithe, before it turned straight out to sea. T h e animal was ' grey in colour, kept its neck bent, and showed a Camellike back which stuck out of the water so far that we could see right under it. I glimpsed the head, and then afterwards all I saw was humped back.' The whole was estimated at fiftysixty feet in length, and left a mighty wash that would have swamped the boat if nearer. It was watched going due eastward at forty or more miles an hour, doubtless frightened by the engine's noise, tili it got right out of sight in slightly over five minutes. [Cp. Trans, supra ii, p. 1.] Presumably the same specimen had been observed at 8.45 a.m. that day close to the Suffolk shore at Southwold by the parson of that town, as recorded in the EAglian Daily Times of 22-25 October. Like the former examples of 29 October 1896, this one was pretty surely attributable to the Giant Squid, Architeuthis dux ; but tili one comes ashore to be adequately examined, a certain measure of doubt respecting its species must persist, as your Hon. Secretary pointed out in the populär press at the time.

FISH : T w o MORE Cantharus

lineatus,

MONT. ( T r a n s , ii,

106).—

For the first (sie) time since 1852 an Old Wife was hooked by a local lad while fishing from the north pier extension at Lowestoft on 2 August: it was 1 \ inches long. One or two speeimens were brought in some years ago by trawlers near Galloper Sands, but it is eighty-six (sie) years since any have been caught at Lowestoft.

T h i s Ballam Wrasse is common on the rocky west of England, but a mere accidental Wanderer to our east coast (Local Daily Paper, 4 August 1938).—A specimen of this Sea Bream, 10 inches in length, was brought to me for identification on 5 August 1938. It had been taken in a trawl off Lowestoft. It is a Mediterranean and eastern-Atlantic fish, fairly numerous in the Channel, though north of the Channel a very rare visitor.— D . W . COLLINGS.

T w o speeimens of the Tunny, Thynnus thynnus, L. (Trans, ii, p. 108) were landed at Lowestoft from the local trawler Boreas on 19 August 1938 ; one weighed 480 pounds.

A S O U T H E R N Cyclopteruslumpus, L.—Aparticularlyfine specimen of the hideous Lump-sucker was trawled in the estuary of the Deben at the end of last April. It is twenty-eight inches long, snd about nine pounds in weight. Dr. Gunther, in his 1880 Introduction to Study of Fishes, says that it attains two feet, but is generally shorter (cp. Trans, ii, p. 111).--H. R. L I N G W O O D .

85 MORE Labrus bergylta, Asc. (Trans, ii, 113; iii, 102) —A7i-inches Ballan Wrasse was captured by a local lad with rod and line in Lowestoft harbour on 2 August last; and a week later he hooked another, at the same spot, of about the same size.— OBSERVATIONS.

F. C. COOK.

THE POLLACK.—Afifteen-inchGadus pollachius, Linn., was caught by a boy in the river at Gorleston today, thefirstI have heard of during the twenty-three years I have lived here. Its congener, the Coal-fish (G. virens, L.) is a more usual capture, but can be described as only a very infrequent one.—C. G. DOUGHTY, Gorleston; 29 Oct. 1938.

A LARGE Gadus merlangus, LINN.—A Whiting, over eighteen inches long and weighing six pounds, was among the catch taken into Lowestoft by the local motor-trawler Rewga. It is believed to be the biggestfishof its species ever landed at this port: the average weight of a Whiting is a half, or three-quarters, of a pound (Local Daily Paper, 6 Jan. 1938) and this one seemsto exceed those of ' several pounds ' that are mentioned at Trans, ii, 114.

SINGULAR ADAPTATION.—In process of sweeping the North Sea bed with their trawls throughout the year, Lowestoft fishermen bring home many freaks and curiosities (remarks the Suffolk Daily Paper on 15 October last), thewonderbeing that one learns so little about them. The latest is one of the most Strange even they have come across : One of a local trawler's crew, noticing something queer about a Piaice, Pleuronectes platessa, L., laid it aside tili his immediate work was done and then discovered a rubber-band to be embedded in an amazing fashion in its flesh.

The Fish had caught the band round its stomach [i.e. swum through it so forcibly as to firmly attach it to its broadest circumference] when young ; and as it grew, instead of expanding the band, thefleshcrept round it and then ' reunited, leaving a hole on either side of the Fish for the band to pass through.

Although the Piaice must have worn this miniature corset for two or three years, the rubber was still in perfect condition, giving no signs of deterioration through long immersion in salt-water ' and showing how incongruous must be so artificial a product in a natural element.

THE TWAIT-SHAD AND ITS SPOTS.—For aboutfiveweeks before 1 October last, a considerable shoal of Shad have been frequenting theriver-mouthat Gorleston on thefloodtide, and the sea south of their pier on the ebb, busily feeding on white-bait otherwise ' herring syle.' The Twait-shad (Clupea Finta, Cuv.) is distmguished from our other Shad, the Allis (Clupea Alosa, L.), by

86

OBSERVATIONS.

a row of large dark spots along the upper half of its body and by its gill-rakers being shorter and less numerous, according to Travis Jenkins. Couch and Yarrell find a difference, besides the dark spots, in the fin-rays. On 27 September I caught three Shads on a mackerel-spinner just inside the river-mouth and, upon noticing they had no dark spots, concluded they were Allis Shads ; a friend, who watched me fishing, agrees that no such spots were visible at the time the fish were caught. I had them for supper; but kept the heads, intending to take them to Yarmouth to a Member who, I believe, has examined their gillrakings on a previous occasion. The fish turned out to be extremely poor eating ; but, sure enough, there were the rows of dark spots clearly visible on the cooked fishes' skin. On 30th I spent 1 i hours at the pier-end, watching another angler fish for them : he had already caught three which showed some spots and, after an hour, he began catching more. He agreed, that when taken out of the water, they had no spots; and it was not until the scales were knocked off that spots appeared : this was confirmed by a further angler, who had caught some. The scales are very easily detached when the fish is alive, or dead and still wet (bumping it on the pier-woodwork upon landing it will detachthem); but they adhere very tightly when it is dead and dry.

I had difficulty in exposing the hidden spots on the dead fish which the angler had caught, when I began to watch him. Quite by chance my fish had been carefully handled, and so had lost no scales. It would seem, therefore, that, as the spots are on the skin and not the scales, the illustrations in the works of the three Naturalists mentioned are taken, as one would expect, from netted fish which have had their scales detached, and do not consequently represent the fish as it appears in a State of nature. The skin, bearing the spots, is thick and strongly coloured, and would not suggest that it were scaleless unless closely examined.—C. G. DOUGHTY, Gorleston ; 17 October.

PORBEAGLEATMINSMERE.—On 11 December 1937 I found a dead male Porbeagle-shark on the shore at Minsmere, which measured seven feet in length (the photograph shows a six-foot rule beside it) and forty inches in girth. After I had dissected it, I was told by the adjacent cottagers that it had been washed up a month previously !—A. G. STANSFELD. [The head and tail of this specimen of Lamma Cornubica, Linn., were sent to me for indentification.—D.W.C.] AN ANGEL OR MONK FISH.—A specimen of Rhina squatina., L.

(Trans, ii, p. 129), described as ' unusually large, weighing nearly a hundredweight' [112 pounds], was taken alive in Southwold harbour on 17 March last and brought in a boat to the ferry.

The local daily press gave a photograph of it on 19th inst. The

OBSERVATIONS.

87

species is said to be " often found in trawl nets, but seldom of such a size," which is not indicated. Our records suggest much greater sparcity, and this to be the first from Southwold since Wake's of just a Century ago. A month or so later this year, the London papers told how a customs-officer at Porthcawl was pursued by and slew " a 65 lb. monster of the sea, a Monk Fish whose sixteen-inch mouth was wide open with rows of inch-long teeth," disturbed by the former's dive from a breakwater.

CHELONIID T R I P L E T S . — I t has just been reported to methat Mr. Ernest Norman of Wrentham, whilst digging potatoes in a garden there, unearthed his female Tortoise and, beside it, three eggs : all about six inches below the surface. He has two of these Tortoises that he believes to be male and female. Instances of one and two eggs being laid in England are, I believe, not uncommon : but are not three exceptional ? I know little of such animals or their habits, but think three eggs worth recording.—J. C. HERRINGTON ; 13 Aug. [The species of Tortoise referred is doubtless one (Testudo Graeca, L.) of the south European kinds that is being so plentifully imported by a cheap general stores ; it is usually infested under the legs and tail by a large kind of most objectionable Tick. Hyalomma Syriacum, auct. Turtles lay some 150-350 eggs ; all the four Mediterranean Tortoises mate immediately after hibernation and lay about a dozen.]

N E W T ON ' S U G A R . ' — I was very surprised to find a specimen of the Common Newt, Molge vulgaris, L., sitting on a sugared tree in Swingens Wood at Barking on 8 August 1938. He had crawled over the rough bark and moss to 3§ feet above the ground; but whether he had been attracted by the rum or the moths imbibing the rum was not apparent.—E. W. PLATTEN. [Toads frequently sit at the base of sugared trees to catch moths overcome by their potations ; but we recall no instance of Newts doing so.—Ed.] ORNITHOLOGICAL O B S E R V A T I O N S . — O n 6 October I saw a young Song-thrush in a Woodbridge garden that I had frequented all the summer and noticed four nests of this Bird, though at no time did I see more than a single pair: hence I feel certain that they had successfully reared four broods in the course of one season. Within an area of half a square-mile at Martlesham no less than twenty-six Nightingales' nests were counted, of which all but three brought off their brood. Mr. Row observed a young House Sparrow in the road at Long Melford so early as 1 February this year : though this pest is well known to nest during every month of the year, the record is certainly the earliest known in our County.

I have received authentic information of the

88

OBSERVATIONS.

Bearded Tit nesting in Suffolk, many miles f r o m N o r f o l k : in past years we have claimed it as breeding in our County, b u t always along the northern border. I now know this Reedling to have existed and bred for several years in south Suffolk, close to the Essex border : the actual locus in quo it were indiscreettopublish.

NESTING-BOXES were made füll use of during this season and no less than two dozen that are known in east Suffolk were occupied by Blue and Great Tits, as well as the elusive Wryneck whose appearance of late years has dwindled to almost extreme rarity. M a j o r Buxton secured exceptionally fine photographs of a Wryneck feeding its young, within such a box in his Snape garden. T h i s year, however, has been marked by an increase of the species with us and it is hoped the influx will bemaintained.

EGG-TAKING

OFFENCES.—Successful

prosecutions

of

egg-

collectors, mainly in the case of Crossbills, emphasise the urgent need of extended police-power under the Wild Birds' Protection Acts, for the present limited power certainly causes the rarity of such prosecutions. As legislation now stands and has stood since inaugurated during 1894, it is nearly impossible to detect an offender in flagrante delicto : hence it is to be earnestly hoped that, with new legislation, this grave deficiency will be rectified.

BIRDS' APPEARANCES.—The first Cuckoo of the year was heard by our M e m b e r , M r . R. H . Sherwood at Blaxhall on 25 A p r i l ; I myself heard its welcome call the same evening at Foxhall.

Again this year Montagu Harriers successfully nested at T h o r p ness, and Major Buxton teils me that a couple of females shared the same male bird's attentions. They nested also near Hollesley, u p o n that heath which has afforded good protection for many a season. M r . Stansfeld watched a female Hen Harrier quartering a marsh close to Walberswick on 10 December 1937, he teils me ; and also put u p three Short-eared Owls, within a short distance of each other, on the Reydon marshes on 1 April last. Major Mussenden-Leathes reports the appearance of a Rough-legged Buzzard around Earls Soham in September : pretty surely that seen along the coast at Walberswick, Westleton and Dunwich is the identical specimen.—C. S. LAST. Falco cesalon, TUN., IN MID-WINTER.—At Christmas 1937 Mrs. Cleminson and I saw a Hawk upon several occasions in flight, moving as does a Sparrow-hawk and f r o m time to time calling ' Kee-kee,' eight or ten times repeated in quick succession. On 27 December I f o u n d this mature female, identified on 4 January as a ' Merlin (Falco columbarius cesalon)' by M r . N . B. Kinnear o f t h e British Nat. Hist. M u s e u m to which I presented it, hanging dead in a conspicuous position on a thorn tree, where keepers are wont to suspend vermin, in a heronry of pines

OBSERVATIONS.

89

bordering one of our Suffolk estuaries. It had been shot in the course of the two preceding days, having been doubtless mistaken by the gunner for an unprotected Sparrow-hawk, so his probable assumption that he was slaying mere vermin is excusable.—On nearly every afternoon of 17-27 December a pair of Hen (or possibly Montagu) Harrier-hawks passed over my house at about one o'clock ; but the weather was generally so dull that I took the male to be a good deal darker than most books, especially Sanders', paint the latter, which is a summer migrant, absent here during winter. In another locality, I am glad to say that my sons and I flushed a Botaurus stellaris, L., during December on the Blythburgh marshes, for Capt. Michael Barne had feared his Bitterns had deserted the district of Dunwich.—H. M .

CLEMINSON, 2 4 St. Mary Axe, E.C.3 ; 6 January.

[Quite small numbers of Merlins pass migrantly through SufFolk in autumn and spring ; here they are very rare in mid-winter, and we find no December records. T w o have been noted at Euston during forty vears, in November and April (Trans, i, 170). They are less frequent than Harriers on Sutton Heath (I.e. ii, 92). This rare species is innoeuous to game (I.e. iii, 71). T h e cry is more usually rendered ' kek-kek.'—Ed.] FRANCE IN SEPTEMBER.—I h a d a capital holiday, b u t the w e a t h e r

was too hot to do much botanising, with most flowers dried up.

I collected a few such things, however, as Limonium lychnid- • lfolium, Kun., Amaranthus Blitus, L., which is recorded by Hind as a casual in several Suffolk villages, Euphorbia Portlandica, L. and E. peplis, L., white Scilla autumnalis, Cyperus longus, L., Asplenium marinum, L. and A. lanceolatum, H u d . Lepidoptera were extremely abundant and, even upon the sea-shore, it was impossible to get away from Parage /Kgeria, L., Blues, Heaths, Whites, Tortoiseshells (I mistook Argynnis selene, Schf., on the wing l n Galway, for A. Euphrosyne, at Trans, iii, p. 301 : a net would have obviated the error), Clouded Yellows and Callimorpha Hera, L., Aying by day. A few biting species of Diptera made themselves f e i t ; Orthoptera were exceedingly numerous, varied and of species unknown to me in England : a net would have secured a splendid bag. Such familiar Birds were observed as our Wheatear, Magpie, Kestrel and Sparrow-hawk, with vast nocks of Swallows and small birds that were evidently gathering lor, or resting upon, their journey southwards. T h e outstanding beauty of the district is the coloration of sea and sand compared with the glorious skies, that bear small rounded white clouds Gelting away over the opalescent horizon.—F. W . SIMPSON, Ipswich ; 27 Sept. 1938.

IMMIGRANT BIRDS OF L O N G A G O . — " Read a Letter from Mr. John of M l Y a r m o u t h > A -L-S., in which he states, that on the 23rd ^ lay last, Ardea Cayennensis, Linn., was taken near the walls

90

OBSERVATIONS.

of that town. It has six crest-feathers of unequal length, and agrees with Linnaeus's description of that species in all respects.— Mr. Youell also states, that a pair of the Green Ibis, Tantalusviridis Gmel., were taken near Yarmouth in October l a s t " (Trans.

Linn. Soc. xiv, p. 588 : Minutes of 21 Dec. 1824).

A VISIT FROM Leptoptilus marabou, V I G . — A Stork appeared in an exhausted condition in the yard of a farm at Mendham, just south of the River Waveney, on 22 April last. So feeble was it as to be incapable of further sustained flight, though wary and fully on the defensive to assault on 23 rd ; its hunger was shown by bolting a dead chicken and dead young pig, that were lying in the yard. Recent north winds preclude any idea of its migration from the south. The Bird was indentified (correctly, apparently from a photo in local Daily Paper on 25th) as a Marabou-stork, an old specimen with wing-expanse of some ten feet, so called in Senegal from the commercially valuable plumes of delicate white texture beneath both wings and tail, often imported to this country from its native tropical Africa (Major Denham's ' Travels '). There it is encouraged, for its scavenging habits, to frequent the larger towns of the interior where it quickly becomes all too tarne, snatching meat and even wolf ing boiled fowls whole from the dinner-table. The Marabou is cogeneric with the Indian Adjutant, whose expanse is of fifteen feet; it is naturally a high-flyer, roosting in the top of tall trees whence, like Vultures, it espies prey from afar. The specimen in question, after several times returning to Mendham from free flights along the Waveney was acquired by Sir Gerald TyrwhittDrake, and conveyed on 24 May to his private ' Zoo ' at Maidstone in Kent.

ANOTHER BIRD-SANCTUARY IN S U F F O L K . — N o t until last January did we hear from our esteemed late Member, Mr. Frank Burreil of Fornham St. Martin, that Barton Mere to the north of Bury, a lake of some eleven acres in expanse though falling to barely four acres in summer, is now preserved as a Bird-sanctuary by the interest of Gen. M. Q. Jones, C.B, C.M.G., C.B.E., who lives within three hundred yards of it. We are delighted to find Mr. Burrell can record thence during the spring and summer of 1937 a pair of Great Grebes that reared two young, some Tufted Duck (Nyroca fuligula, L.), Over a hundred Mallards, sixteen Canadian Geese (domesticated Branta Canadensis) and eleven Swans with a single cygnet. Additions : " Here are other birds seen on the mere up to 20 January. Two pairs of Gadwell (Anas strepera, L.) twenty-six Pochard (Nyroca ferina, L.), about two hundred Coot and Moor-hens, three pairs of Little Grebes (Podiceps ruficollis, Pall.), a Heron and some three hundred Gulls."—M. Q U A Y L E JONES ; Barton Mere, 2 8 Jan. 1 9 3 8 .

OBSERVATIONS.

91

On 25 January I saw a Tufted Duck, N. fuligula, that the Rev. A. Harris had shot at Thorndon. Unfortunately he did not get the drake. I think this is rather a rare bird.—CHARLES H. GALE ; Stuston Lodge.

COASTAL GEESE &C.—The hard period of weather at the end of January 1937 brought many geese and ducks southwards : 25-27th I watched many skeins of Brent Geese travelling south off Southwold. On 29th I saw a half-dozen at Easton Broad, along with three Slavonian Gretes and a Goosander. Two female or immature Swans were hanging in a Southwold butcher's window on 2 February, which he thought had been shot on the Blyth estuary. On 17 December that year I observed a single drake Goosander on Easton Broad, with both Common and Velvet Scoters.—A. G. STANSFELD, 14 October 1938.

A FORTUITOUS Lagopus mutus, M O N T I N . ?—" At Eve, on morning of 3rd September, Mr. F. Walton, whilst in his meadow in Lowgate Street, noticed a dog chasing a Bird and, on investigation, found the dog had killed it. The Bird proved to be a Ptarmigan with charactistic white wings and underparts, and feathered toes and legs. What brought it so far south is not known " (Local Daily Paper, 6 Sept. 1938). [Ptarmigan, though common on some of the highest Scots mountains, is quite unknown in England, Dr. Butler asserts ; and neither Babington nor Ticehurst had heard of it in Suffolk. Much more likely the Bird was a Grouse of sorts ; but, if correctly named, merely a fortuitous introduction : the inadequate description agrees with Kirkman and Jourdain's of 1930, p. 140, who give its distribution as extending only from the Clyde and Förth northwards, and Hebrides Isles.—Ed.] MALE Phasianus Colchicus, L., SITTING.—A gamekeeper (F. Coates) at Sutton writes on 10 June last: " I have the unusual experience of a cock-Pheasant sitting. When the hen bird had laid nine eggs, the cock went broody and started sitting.

The hen laid one more egg, outside the nest, and for a day or two both birds were sitting side by side. When last I went the cock only was there and, as it would appear, the hen became disgusted for she took unto herseif another mate, made a new nest a few yards from the first, and is now sitting." A further letter today adds that the cock continued to sit for several more days, but was put off the nest when visitors came to look and did not return. This is very unfortunate, as I was anxiously waiting to see what would happen when the chicks hatched out. I am sending herewith a photograph of the broody cock.—GEORGE BIRD; l7June. [I have never seen a clearer picture of this somewhat uncommon phase of Pheasant life.—COLONEL HAWLEY].

92

OBSERVATIONS.

A CLUTCH OF Hoematopus ostralegus, L.—Herewith I send a photograph [unluckily spoilt by painting spashes of white on the eggs.

D . W . C . ] of an Oyster-catcher's nest, that was taken on 13 June 1938, on the beach about a mile south of Southwold south pier.

T h e eggs, laid about 5 June, were lying on stones of nearly their own size, some thirty feet above high-water mark. Now the birds have taken their young to a marsh at the back of the beach, where is a large salt-water pond about which thev spend most of their time.—R. G. CRICHTON. T w o RARE VISITORS TO ENGLAND.—Of the peculiarlyscarce Birds recorded during the year, the Red-breasted Snipe, Limnodromus griseus, Gmelin, observed in Devon, must be accorded pride of place ; this Sandpiper is an American species, unnoticed in Suffolk since John Hoy recorded a male from near Yarmouth (Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. vi, 1841, p. 236). We have two occurrences here of the Rose-coloured Starling, Pastor roseus, L., one at Melton and a bunch of five together that was identified by a local observer at Somerleyton ; but there have been a good many instanced in other parts of the country this year, evidently one of peculiar influx in their case.—C.S.L. OCCURRENCE OF Totanus flavipes IN SUFFOLK.—When shooting the salterns near Waldringfield on the Deben on 1 September last, I shot a Yellow-shank (T. flavipes).

Its flight and appearance were much like those of a Red-shank, for which Bird I mistook it. When I picked it up, however, its plumage, bright lemoncoloured legs, and shorter bill, left no doubt as to its identitv.

According to Jack's ' British Bird Book '. of 1913, this is an American species and, at that date, had been recorded only three times in this country : in Notts, Cornwall and Fair Island [between Orkney and Shetland]. It would be interesting to know if T. flavipes had been noticed elsewhere with us during the past seventeen years [et postea : besides that seen in east Kent by T . C. Gregory of Deal on 19 Sept. 1934] On the same saltings in August 1916, I shot a Chilian Pintail (Dafila spinicanota), identified after considerable research at the British Museum of Natural History : in this case, the Museum authorities suggested that the Bird had escaped from some ornamental waters.—CLEMENT CHEVALLIER, Rushmere, Ipswich.

[WE agree with its author that this valuable record, published in ' T h e Field ' on 3 Jan. 1931, is well worthy of a permanent place in our County's annals. T h e former individual is, obviouslv, no more than an occasional visitor and is unmentioned by both Babington and Ticehurst.—Ed.] T H E BLACK T E R N IN SUFFOLK—On both 19 and 22 September 1937 I saw a solitary Black Tern, Hydrochelidon nigra, L., at Easton Broad, writes Mr. Stansfeld last October. And

OBSERVATIONS.

93

Dr. Buckle reports an immature specimen, hunting for food over a recently water-filled flint pit, a half-mile west of Cläre.

He also observed a Ringed Plover's nest at the bottom of a gravelpit, ten yards in diameter, on open Breck ; the sitting Bird was on four eggs and could not see a six-foot object tili it was within five yards of pit-top. These Plovers usually prefer an open Stretch of land, either heath or beach, which affords a wide scope of vision in case of approaching danger. Both Lapwing and Ringed Plover nested as usual this year on Martlesham Heath, within a few yards of tracks made by aeroplanes in ascent and descent: apparently the latter pays no heed to danger or the excessive noise associated with such a site, for each year they undauntedly return to this precarious zone, where death is defied by a mere foot or so.—C.S.L. RINGED Larus marinus, L., &c.—A ploughman, working for Major Perceval Graves of the Lodge in Dovercourt, Essex, saw a Black-headed Gull fall under his plough at the end of December last, and removed from it a ring bearing the legend " M u s e u m Goteborg, Sweden: 2 8 1 9 9 . " T h e bird was unmjured and at once flew off. This man is attached to feathered fellows, and frequently followed up and down the field by a peculiarly tarne Wagtail. Later I hear from Prof. Dr. Yagers Reen of Gothenburg that the Gull had been ringed as a nestling on 2 5 June 1 9 3 3 at OfFenby on Oland Island.—MRS. GRAVES • 1 4 Jan. 1 9 3 8 .

A dead ringed Starling, which had been found in a Southwold garden, was brought to me on 14 March last. The ring was marked Museum, Leiden, Holland : no. D 2 2 3 1 5 . So I wrote to the museum and they sent me particulars, which I have at the moment mislaid but will send you later o n . — D . W . COLLINGS • 29 April 1938.

A N EARLY LITTLE AUK.—While recently camping out for the purpose of watching sea and shore Birds, in which I have been specialising this summer on the Wash and along the Orwell, 1 found a specimen of Mergulus alle, L., in winter plumage on J beptember, cast up on the beach near Benacre Broad. T h e body was hardly stiff and bore no trace of oil or violence, and there had been no bad weather. Although occasionally noticed here after a severe winter storm, there is but one previous record of this arctic Bird on our coast in September : Ticehurst, ßirds Suff. 4 3 6 . — H E N R Y ANDREWS.

SEA-BIRDS.—The hard weather of February 1937 brought several interesting kinds southwards : on 4th I watched four Little Gulls on Southwold beach and, the same day, had an excellent view of a pair of Red-necked Grebes at Easton Broad.

94

OBSERVATIONS.

[Twelve days later we noticed a specimen of Podicipes griseigena, Bod., lying dead but not oiled on the shore at Waxham in Norfolk ; it is uncommon, and pretty well confined to the coast, in EAnglia.— Ed.] I was on a cargo-boat off the Suffolk coast on 8 August last, returning from a holiday in Finland, when I saw many hundreds of Guillemots and Razorbills on the water with a couple of Ganets. On 1 Ith of the preceding April I picked up a longdead Fulmar Petrel at Kessingland.—A. G . STANSFELD. DIVING BIRDS PADDLING W H I L S T A S L E E P . — I have suggested (Trans, ii, p. 308) that sleeping Guillemots might be overtaken by oil floating on the same tide, owing to the birds keeping up an automatic paddling to retain themselves more or less on their feeding-grounds. I was interested a short time ago, therefore, to read the " Great Northern Divers seldom sleep during the day, but even when asleep the birds swim automatically and keep their Station, unaffected by the wind and tide that ceaselessly play about the Hebridean Isles" (The Immortal Isles, by Seton Gordon, F.Z.S., page 51).—C. G. DOUGHTY ; Sept. 1938.

WESTERN CORNWALL IN EARLY A U G U S T . — I have just concluded a delightful tour round Penzance, where the Butterfly Argynnis Aglaja was very common everywhere and Vanessa cardui seen in fair numbers ; but no more than one or two Blues were encountered. The commonest kinds were Pararge Megaera, Epinephele tithonus, E. Janira and Ccenonympha pamphilus, found in very large numbers in all localities. The commonest Moth observed was Lasiocampa quercus in all directions and frequently found Aying in even the busy streets of towns among people and traffic ; no other remarkable kind was noted. Birds did not appear very numerous, excepting Gulls, Cormorants and Jackdaws : most of the first were Herring Gulls followed by the Great Black-backed Gull, though a few Black-headed Gulls and Common Terns were seen. Both Cormorants and Jackdaws abounded on the coast, where were seen several Oyster Catchers, chiefly around Mousehole near Newlyn. Peregrines and Ravens also were seen, with Stonechats, Wheatears and Com Buntings ; but the Cornish Chough, carefully looked for in the more remote and wilder stretches of coast, unhappily evaded Observation.— RICHARD STILES ; Plymouth, 15 August.

[Mr. Stiles notes that migrants arrive in Cornwall many days before they are noticed here and doubtlessly a percentage of Cornish passengers settle in Suffolk, for authorities assert migrants to reach us via Cornwall rather than across the east coast.—C.S.L.] T H E BIRDS OF F A K E N H A M . — I n our Transactions, just to hand, I have perused with much interest a list of species observed at Earls Soham, and think it may interest Members if I sent a similar one This exceeds the other by a good number, and all were

OBSERVATIONS.

95

seen in this one parish. I am certain that, in recent years, Birds have decreased in both individuals and species : now there are no Wrynecks or Redstarts, no Barn-owls, a very few Duck during the winter, fewer Carrion C r o w s ; but Red backed Shrikes, Pigeons, Starlings and Sparrows are on the increase.—R. B. CATON, Fakenham Old Rectory, Thetford, S u f f o l k ; 7 Jan. 1938. [We are delighted to receive this bare List of names f r o m our valued and venerable M e m b e r . It is, indeed, a striking one for so small an area, and embraces a total 135 different kinds ; in the few instances of suffixed dates-of-occurrence, these repeat those enumerated in our Trans, of 1931 pp. 165-75, where M r . Caton published an excellent account of the entire verbetrate fauna of his village since 1887. Among Aves the present lists adds only the Egyptian Goose, Alopochen JEgyptiaca, L., which was first observed in Fakenham on 10 M a r c h 1936 — Ed.] THE SETTASK: BREEDING RECORDSOF 1 9 3 8 . — O u r B i r d s R e c o r d e r

set the task of concentrating on twelve Birds this year (cf. Trans, iii, 207). T h i s was intended to give an approximate estimation of the present distribution of a dozen migrants that have recently become rare in our County. But their very rarity has doubtless damped enthusiasm, for it is no light matter to discover so elusive an object as a retiring Bird : hence the returns are more fragmentary than had been anticipated. Although this List differs somewhat f r o m the earlier ones of mere arrivals.its purpose is of much greater scientific value, mainly in assisting to ascertain why our rarer migrants are becoming persistently more evanescent in certain districts of Suffolk. Elsewhere in the County a few of t h e m have considerably multiplied, especially the Magpie and Jay, but not in the Ipswich district; and the Hawfinch shows merely two records. O u r western moiety attracts the Crossbill, C o m Bunting and L a n d Rail, due to more suitable terrain, whilst the Hedstart that was formerly common and generally distributed is become a straggler, with but a Single notice. T o take the species in D r . Ticehurst's order :— MAGPIE.—Earls Soham, 6 nests, each rearing a brood ; Bacton, K T ! f m A p r i 1 ' e a c h r e a r i n g 6 young ; Occold, 2 nests in April' both deserted ; Aspall, 1 nest in April, rearing 6 young ; Elmsett, I nest but details not available; Henley, 1 nest. A brood brought off at Playford (Miss R. M . King). Several birds were seen at Lakenheath, Eriswell, Elveden, Glemsford, Stanningfield and Lawshall, but no particulars of breeding forthcoming.

HAWFINCH.—Records obtainable of only one pair in each half ot our County : both nests believed to have reared young. N o w oecoming a mere straggler to Suffolk.

96

OBSERVATIONS.

CROSSBII.L.—Colonies recorded from Euston, Thetford, Livermere Magna, Flempton, Brandon, Lakenheath, Elveden, Cavenham and B a m h a m : well established in west SufTolk, but very thinly scattered in eastern. T h e i r breeding haunts are now carefully watched, which should tend to these colonies' expansion.

CORN BUNTING.—The sole records come from Lakenheath, where the species has been wide-spread for manv years : 3 nests observed in a hay-field, and 4 young reared in each case. Now very rare in all our other districts : Local Secretaries report none.

TREE PIPIT.—Several pairs nested on Martlesham Heath, and 3 nests recorded with young ; 2 nests in Lakenheath each reared young, but one victimised by Cuckoo. Each nest observed was placed within a few feet of a tall tree, forming good vantagepoint for parents when feeding young.

RED-BACKED SHRIKE—1 pair observed at Martlesham, where nest with 5 eggs was seen in orchard : brood successfully reared.

1 pair seen at Butley, no nest discovered. Several pairs recorded from Lakenheath." Very little in evidence this year, probably owing to its late arrival.

GRASSHOPPER WARBLER.—Only 1 record, i.e. from the Lakenheath district. Shy, skulking habits render this species difficult to locate and so to estimate numbers ; it is nowhere numerous, and to compute 6 pairs throughout the County would be surely comprehensive.

WOOD-WARBLER OR WREN.—Only one bird seen, and that near Butley. A difficult species to locate without penetrating into the densest woods and thickets, and even there it is unnoticed except by those familiar with its movements. Now considered very rare.

REDSTART.—Recorded from only Hollesley : 2 broods reared in successively M a y and June, from nest placed behind loose fencing round a garden.

WHINCHAT.—11 nests found beside main road from Melton to Hollesley and Sutton, each successfully reared young ; 2 nests at Wantisden, each containing 6 young ; 2 nests at Martlesham, one met disaster, the other reared 6 young. A distinctly local species, because confined to heaths and bracken-covered wastes as breeding terrain.

LESSER-SPOTTED WOODPECKER.—1 quite definite record from Foxhall, where nest was about four feet above ground in decayed Elder-tree : 5 young reared. It is thinly distributed throughout our County, where are merely a few scattered pairs in the best timbered districts.

OBSERVATIONS.

97

CORNCRAKE OR LAND-RAIL.—No records this vear, and no authentic p r o o f o f n e s t i n g since that at Herringfleet in 1927. N o w a rare visitor to Suffolk.—CECIL S. LAST ; 24 October 1938.

BAT FLYING BY DAY.—Beside the road at Wordwell at 11.45 on 25 August last, my attention was arrested by a bird flying over water with a faster wing-flutter than any bird I knew.

The sunshine was hot and through it to the shade cast by tall young Willows and black Poplars this curious flight was pursued after insects over a Potamogeton-covered rectangular pond of 54 by 16 paces. Presently the flight was prolonged close over my head, as I sheltered behind a six-feet clump of Willow-herb, so that I plainly saw the C o m m o n Bat (Pipestrellus pipistrellus, Trans, ii, 13) with short ears. T h e previous night had been cool and presumably afforded such a dearth of diet as had moved this individual to hawk for food at so unusual an hour, for if I have ever seen Bats flying by day before I retain no note of the occurrence. However, Johnston says that this species " appears occasionally in broad daylight, drawn out perhaps by hunger.

Ordinarily it does not appear tili the sun has set."

Our Hon. Treasurer, M r . Bedwell, teils m e he also saw a Bat, doubtless the same kind, flying by day last June which had enough cold nights to send both t h e m and our Mothists empty to bed !— CLAUDE MORLEY.

COLOUR-FORM OF " Talpa europcea.—A variety of the Mole is occasionally f o u n d at Levington, in the county of Suffolk. T h e snout is white, and a white line extends f r ö m the middle of it as far u p o n the head as on a level with the eyes. Belly orangetawny, which colour reaches to the breast, where it becomes narrow, and then forms a line across it reaching to the insertion of the fore feet. Tail covered thinly with long white hair, and the extreme half of it entirely white " (REV. REVETT SHEPPARD in Trans. L i n n . Soc. xiv, p. 587 : M i n u t e s of 16 Nov. 1824).

A CLIMBING MOUSE.—As my tie was being adjusted before breakfast on 15 April last, attention was drawn by a scratching sound just outside the west bedroom here and I saw, within six inches of me, a unicolorous dark-grey House M o u s e (Trans, ü, p. 18) scrambling along a tendril of the Honeysuckle that shields the north side of the window at some fifteen feet above ground. W e became conscious of each other simultaneously ; I paused in statu quo, and he dropped a Lonicera leaf. Quick as thought, he j u m p e d reversely, took the leaf in his m o u t h again by its edge, and backed with it beyond m y ränge of vision into a presumable hole of the wall just u n d e r the end of the drip-board covering the window. Walls of old-timbered houses abound in crannies that afford superb mouse-holds, whenever- the outer plaster cracks ; but, as we invariably maintain three house-doors

H

DEAD PORBEAGLE AT MINSMERE {Page THE STEEL RULE MEASURES 6 FT.

86).

MALE

PHASIANUS SITTING ( P a g e

01).

98

OBSERVATIONS.

Wide tili long after dusk throughout the year, such clambering up Lonicera, ivy and over the lead of the drawingroom bowwindow seems a work of supererogation. However, the best laid plans of Mice and Men are mentally all agley. Mus musculus, L., is omnivorous; but was the succulent leaf, for which he nfight well have been risking his life by delay, part of bed or b o a r d ?—CLAUDE M O R L E Y , M o n k s

Soham

House.

SNOWLESS A L B I N I S M . — L a s t January I saw in Suffolk a Stoat, Mustela erminea, Linn., that was totally white excepting the black tail. I thought this remarkable, considering the extreme mildness of December and January this winter (ARCHDEACON C. P. CORY, Woodbridge; 12 May).—On 12 September 1938 a perfect albino Hedgehog, Erinaceus Europäern, Linn., is reported on good authority to have been seen [and NOT slain, we trust] on the south Lowestoft golf-course. I may add that a small Seal,Phoca vitulina, Linn., spent some time in Lowestoft harbour during August.—F. C . COOK.

A M S . D O L P H I N RECORD (Trans, iii, 3 0 9 ) . — T h e individual taken off Yarmouth in April 1845 was described under an erroneous name, with plate, by T . Brightwell (Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. xvii, 21 ; cf. Southwell in ' Seals & Whales of Brit. Seas, 126 where the year 1846 is corrected to 1845 in the author's copy ; and in Trans. Norf. Nat. Soc. i, 80 and ii, 335 where he quotes Dr. Cunningham's opinion concerning the Dolphin's true identity). In all cases, Southwell gives the animal as a White-beaked Dolphin Lagenorhynchus albirostns, Gray, the skull being preserved in Norwich Museum, which generic name is speit incorrectly [direct, in too confiding a spirit! from Norf.

Soc ix, 306.—Ed.] in Trans. Suff. Nat. Soc. i, 240, where [and at ii, 30] Suffolk occurrences are noted.—E. A. ELLIS, Norwich Museum; 1 March 1938.

HABITS OF Phoccena communis, Cuv.—We have Porpoises off the front here pretty often, but not until this evening have I seen one almost in the breakers. It was low tide with a somewhat strong swell running, and the Porpoise remained motionless when we first noticed it on the top of the water. It was obviously aground ona rock and at first we thought it to be dead ; but a breaker lifted it off, and it began to go up and down the coast at about seventy or eighty feet from the shore. The depth here at low tide at that distance out would be four feet at the most, so we kept wondenng if the animal would clear the swirl where the groynes were awash but all went well and, after about half-hour of beating the coast in an uncertain manner, the Porpoise finally made straight out to s e a . — G E O F F R E Y M . FRENCH ; Felixstow ; 3 April 1938.