Observations 5 Part 2

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OBSERVATIONS. Sursum corda !

MASTODON AT WORLINGHAM.—One

o f our

Southwold

men,

working at the Holton äerodrome, on 10 July brought me a tooth of Mastodon [1 Arvernensis, Croiz (cp. Trans, ii, 27)] that he had rescued from a mixing machine. It was found in clay which had been brought from Worlingham near Beccles. It weighs exactly 2 lbs. and is not in a very good State, the cusps along one side all being broken off and the others slightly damaged. I have asked him to look out for any other Fossils, which he has promised to do.—IDA S. CRITTEN, Southwold ; 12 July. [Doubtless washed into the Pliocene Beds west of Worlingham church, probably the fine-grained and highly micaceous Chillesford Clay that outcrops a mile or so N. at Aldby, from older Eocene deposits : quite a new locality.—Ed.] SYLEHAM LAMPS.—Considerable discussion ensued upon our notice of Will-o'-the-Wisp (supra, p. 25). Satisfactory conclusion is not reached, but the three following references seem to set us in the right direction for its discovery. (1) Methane is an odourless gas produced by decomposition of organic matter, and explosive when mixed with severi-eights volumes of air, then constituting coal-mines' fire-damp (Stedman's 1937 Practical Medical Dict.). (2) Methane or marsh-gas is CH 4 and the simplest hydrocarbon. It is met with in marshes where decomposition or decay of vegetable matter is taking place under water ; it also occurs in coal mines, where the gas or fire-damp, issuing from fissures in the coal, sometimes contains eighty-nine per cent. of Methane, to the presence of which, mixed with air, explosions in mines are due. Ordinarily coal-gas contains about ninety per cent. of Methane, which is formed in small quantities by the direct union of carbon and hydrogen at about 1200° (Perkins & Kipping's 1906 Organic Chemistry). (3) Ignis fatuus or fool's fire is a pale flame, sometimes seen over marshy ground, probably caused by the spontaneous combustion of Methane CH4, or other inflammable marsh gas (Uvarov's 1942 little book on Science). Methane is quite different from sulphuretted hydrogen, Dr. Hocken teils us, v.v.—At EAMisc. 10942 (pub. 9 iii 1943) Mr. G. F. Fell of Orford gives valuable first-hand data of this apparition sixty years ago over Kiln Field and Workhouse Field (which word should indicate arable) in Sudbourn, showing its

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detection to be a matter of proximity : T h e light resembles that of a dull red lantern with its glass smoky ; it moved to and fro across the field (wind omitted) at about Walking pace, always in the same ' track ' and about two feet above ground, never approaching hedges. Upon several occasions it was persistently visible at 2-300 yards or more but, when approached within less than 100 yards, became invisible, as was synchronally proved by persons Walking over the field while others watche'd from two hundred yards away.—We, who have been out and about from dusk to dawn for sixty years have never witnessed this interesting phenomenon, doubtless much rarer than before Iand was so thoroughly drained.—Ed. S O M E PALUDOSE P L A N T S . — T h e watery wood in Cretingham, referred to by me (Trans, v, 60), appears to be quite primeval marsh and produces interesting flowers that attain an abnormal growth in so congenial a soil and, doubtless, are heightened by the overgrowth of Alder, Ash and Willow, the partial felling of which has recently rendered the place more or less accessible.

Still Hemp Agrimony, Marsh Thistle and Valeriana officinalis, rise well over one's head, tall Angelica to seven feet eight is profuse, and in at least one case clumps of ' Small' Teasle were measured to attain the height above ground of but l f inehes short of eight feet in mid-August. T h e whole is inextricably interwoven with Lianas of Convolvulus and Hop. On a palch of gravel was found Stachys betonica, Ben. ; and at the highest point of the wood, for fully twenty yards on both sides of a ditch dividing it from an arable field, flourishes a wealth of Grey Millet (Lithospermum officinale, L.) in great bushes some three feet high and thickly branching near as wide across : quite unlike the small and isolated plants noticed in our Trans, from Coddenham and Monks Soham.

Among these marsh plants and a quarter-mile from the only house in sight, Grove-farm, was a single Burdock-like plant unluckily in such an advanced State that the corollas were entirely shrivelled, leaving only the prickly calyx-cups, so I could not at first recognise it though the smooth and pointed leaves are peculiar. Later I find it to be Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca, L.), which is not regarded as indigenous though well established in Britain and such wild specimens are supposed to be garden escapes for which, in the present ultra-feral instance, it is hard to account. This species is well worthy of record, for Hind knew of only six Suffolk localities: Pakenham, Bury, Stowlangtoft, near Bungay, N. Cove and Beiton, whereof at least two are so old as to be well-nigh historic, e.g. the last is " Waste places, Caister and Beiton ; rare, 1801, by M r .

Wigg " (Pagets' Yarmouth 1834, p. 63).—A. MAYFIELD, 3 Sept.

M O R E G E N I S T A TINCTORIA.—Recently you were looking for a Leucoptera M o t h on Dyers Weed (Trans, iv, 242). I came across a splendid lot of this plant on 27 June, in füll bloom and not more

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101

than a mile f r o m Haiesworth. In the distance it looked like a mass of flowering Furze. It is about half way along and one field to the north of Harrisons Lane, leading f r o m the top of the hill on Stone Street to Holton. I saw a grass track running f r o m the lane, past an allotment, straight to this very fine patch in a pasture where cows were feeding. I fear the flowers will soon be over, as they do not last long.—E. R. LONG, 32 Quay-street, Haiesworth.

WATER VIOLET P R O F U S E . — O n e very shallow pond, close to All Saints Church, presented a beautiful sight 011 11 May last, being completely covered with the pink-mauve flowers of this uncommon aquatic Hottonia palustris, L. I have also found it in permanent ditches at the adjacent parishes of St. Nicholas and St. James, all in South Elmham village ; and succeeded in transplanting a few roots to m y own Haiesworth garden p o n d . — M E L V I L L E HOCKEN. [Hind in 1889, p. 281, presents a surprisingly long array of Suffolk localities, in the majority of which we fear it now extinct, for this delightsome flower, though none in Elmham, where we first rejoiced in its delicacy by Dr. Hocken's kind introduction late in that same month.—Ed.] LARGE ALDER T R E E S . — R e c e n t l y I h a p p e n e d u p o n a r e m a r k a b l e

Alder, Standing isolated in a pightle that is hardly above the level of the D e b e n marshes in Cretingham. In September I measured its circumference at five feet high, and found it to be 20 ft. 10 ins.

This is not a fair estimate for, though rising f r o m a single root, the base bisects at two feet, and the arms have been pollarded at some remote period about eight feet f r o m the ground ; now, f r o m these two truncated tops, spring three sturdy stems. M r . Jim Burton and I measured two fine, clean-grown Alder-trees beside the Blythe River in Heveningham Park on 3 Oct. and f o u n d the larger to have a circumference of 13 feet 5 inches at five feet f r o m the ground.—CLAUDE

MORLEY.

ELECTRIC CENTIPED REDISCOVERED.—As I came in f r o m the garden after dark, at 9 p.m. on 17 Oct. last, I noticed a small white phosphorescent light shining on the doorstep and suggested a Glow-worm to my husband. At once he recalled the discussion at Trans, ii, pp. 82 & 179 ; so we went to investigate. T h e light still shone, though more dimly than before ; and a hand-torch on the spot revealed no Beetle but a specimen of the yellow Centiped Geophilus electricus, L. (not G, carpophaga, as doubtless wrongly named at Trans, ii, p. 100), 23 m m . in length, whose anal half was jammed and rendered inert between door and step, accounting for reduced light. Not seen here for a score of years ; but likely to be common enough, for when carrying a light one would not see t h e m . — M R S .

MORLEY, M o n k s

Soham.

BEETLES OF 1943.—Rarely for a half Century have Coleop'era been scarcer in our County than this year, presumably upon account of the preceding mild winter. Hardly a score of even

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OBSERVATIONS.

passable kinds were noted. I enclose specimens of marauders found in a small bag of flour that had been stored at Waldringt ie!d for emergency : several of the Phycitid Ephestia Kuhnella, Zell, and the Beetle [Dermestes lardarius, L.]. (Canon Waller, 21 May).

Mycetophagus 4-pustulatus, L., in fungus on dead Ash-tree at Spexhall 13 April ; M. multipunctatus, Hlw., numerous in Boletus on Elm-tree Bentley Woods 7 June ; Scymnus arcuatus, Rsi., one only on same window at Monks Soham at 4 p.m. 26 July (Mly).

An immature Endomychus coccineus, L., was under loose Willow bark on 10 June at Badley, which soon attained mature coloration ; Aphodius constans, Dft., on Nettles at Bosmere 4 June ; Agrilus angustulus, III., on Hazel at Barking 19 June ; Thanasimus formicarius, L., on a log in Barking Woods on 11 June (Geoffrey Burton). Blaps mucronata, Ltr., numerous in Haiesworth cellar, taken 10 April (Dr. Hocken). Cistela ceramboides, L., Needham causeway 14 June (GBtn) ; CEdemera lurida, Msh., Barking Woods 8 Aug. (Btn); Cteniopus sulphureus, L., several on Heracleum flowers far from sand, low in Thelnetham Fen 30 July, where Longitarsus ochroleucus, Msh., was swept; Toxotus meridiamis, Pz., 26 May—6 June at Bentley Woods, Brandeston (Mly) and Linstead Ponds (Btn). Saperda populnea, L., unusually abundant on young Aspens, with several Dorytomus tremulae, Pyk., in Bentley Woods on 12 June, when one Liparis coronatus, Goez, was Walking across a road in Belstead village (GBtn). The last capture is especially valuable as Belstead is far from any railway, and all previous SufFolk specimens were thought to have been introduced with chalk for railway-embankment (cf. Coleop.

Suff., Ist Suppl. 1905, 10).

Eurydema oleraceum, L I N N . , N E W TO S U F F O L K . — " I once observed a pair of Pentatoma oleracea, a very pretty [metallic golden olive-green] Bug, in coitu, both sexes being ornamented with white spots, and by them stood a third distinguished by red ones," the Revd. William Kirby remarks (Introd. iv, 166), but does not localise them, so we cannot record them from Barham.

A single beautiful 5 was beaten by me, at 2.30 p.m. on 30 August last, from branch of a blown-down Spruce fir in the midst of Blythburgh Wood ; an hour's plying of three beating-sticks dislodged no second specimen. This is the most northerly spot hitherto known for the species in Britain, some eight miles N. of Cambridge, where Fred. Bond found it about seventy years ago.

It was unknown as indigenous to Donovan in 1810, but noticed

by Samouelle in 1819 as inhabiting our ' woods and sandy situations.' It is to be ' found on flowers ' (Morey) of Pimpinella saxifraga (Jones) ; and feeds on Potatoe, Asparagus, cereals, Brassica oleracea and other low Cruciferae, throughout Europe, where it has been very destructive to Cabbages (DeG. Mem. iii, 1773, 268), Asia Minor, Turkestan and Siberia ; its eggs are said

by Rondani to be parasitised in Italy by the Chalcid-fly Misocoris

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103

oophagus, Rond. Considering its frequency in Sweden, it is remarkable that it should now be known f r o m no more than nine of our Counties, and those all southern :—Suffolk, Cambridge, Oxford (Fowler, E M M , 1903), Surrey (Saunders), Bristol and Kings Stanton in Glos. ; Kent at Deal (Walker), H u n t i n g f i e l d ( E M M . 1902, 182) and a pair at Sandwich on 6 Sept. 1922 (in my coli, ex Bedwell) ; Sussex (Bloomfield's N H i s t . Hastings 1898) ; I. W i g h t and Devon (Saunders). [It occurs in Berks and Cornwall.—E.C.B.] I will add here that the extremely local Bug Gastrodes abietis, L., f o u n d to occur in this wood on 10 M a y 1938 (Trans, iv, 68), turned u p in some n u m b e r s on l l t h April last, in the c o n e s o f t h e same splendid Spuce-fir, 60 feet in height, that was blown-down by the N N W gale of 7th. ; they were hardly lsss numerous on 29 M a y ; and on 30 August in such plenty that one shovelled them f r o m the beating-tray into boxes. M r . Bedwell has many to distribute to any M e m b e r needing the species.

T H E P L A N T , THE P L A C E , A N D T H E BUG.—Enchanters Nightshade was t e r m e d by H i n d in 1889 ' f r e q u e n t in shady places in all the districts ' of Suffolk. Nowadays I regard it as distinctly local and have noted it only at Parham, Letheringham, Onehouse, not very profuse at Raydon, always inside woods and on Boulder Clay, though Miss Watson f o u n d it at Sproughton on Glacial Gravel.

On 4 J u n e last, I discovered carpets of it in a Boulder Clay wood at Brandeston ; and, despite persistent failure elsewhere in our County, my mind at once turned to the Heteropteron Metatropis rufescens, Schf., which Saunders in 1892 f o u n d to feed u p o n it in only Dorset and Hants, where, at the M o n t a g u A r m s in Brockenhurst during M a y 1895, M r . C. W . Dale gave me a specimen he had just taken as a great rarity. Since that time I have swept ihis gnat-like Bug in profusion f r o m Circcea lutetiana, L., at both Loxley W o o d in Shapwick, Somerset, where some occurred on Heracleum flowers in only June (the last on 1 July) 1933, and the New Forest where a pair were in cop. at 5 p.m. on 4 June 1936.

In fact, I knew of it nowhere north of the T h a m e s (though Butler in 1923 gives also Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Oxon, Berks & Bucks) tili, in this Brandeston wood, a sweep with a very light net t h r o u g h the Nightshade at once secured the Bug : NEW to Suffolk.

Again, on 6 June, M r Jim Burton and I were sweeping over the sandy hillside, covered with flowering Hieracium pilosella, just n o r t h of Belstead Woods, when n u m e r o u s small Capsids of a species I was surprised not to recognise t u r n e d up. Later examination showed t h e m to be both sexes of Hoplomachus Thunbergi, Fall. T h i s is a local Insect, ' occurring in dry places amongst low Vegetation, particularly on flowers ' (Jones, 1930) of this Mouse-ear Hawk-weed in only Kent, Surrey, Dorset, Devon and Worcs ( S a u n d e r s ) : so NEWto East Anglia.—CLAUDE M O R L E Y ,

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PEASE PLAGUE.—I am sending for names some minute Insects, which are proving a pest upon Peas and Beans just at present.

Perhaps you know something about them : I do not ! To-day I have been looking at a whole field of Peas that is absolutely infested bv them and, the farmer teils me, the crop so entirely spoilt that he will have to make it into silage.—(CANON) A. P. W A L L E R , Waldringfield ; 28 June. [The Homoptera received are the wellknown Aphis, Siphonophora pisi, Kalt., only too often of great damage to the above crops ; this year thev have been especially so, not only upon the light lands of Colneis Hundred but upon the far heavier soil of High Suffolk, where we have heard many complaints of the above kind in Ashfield-Thorp, &c.—Ed.] O T H E R H E M I P T E R A OF 1943.—Considering the smali attention paid to Bugs and the dearth of Beetles this year, several quite notable kinds have come to Members' notice in Suffolk. T h u s Odontoscelis fuliginosa, L., which I have from only coast sandhills at Felixstow and Deal, was swept from peculiarly dry Vegetation on the gravelly hill-side by Bentley Woods on 25 July, along with Serenthia lata, Fall., generally confined with us to the Breck.

Larvae and immature imagines of Eurygaster maura, L., persist well in Thelnetham Fen ; and larvae of Pentatoma prasina, L., were on Knapweed in Barking Wood in Aug., with eggs (Geof.

Burton) on Aspen at Bentley in June. Berytus crassipes, HS. ; n all stages, were the sole Insects in a handful of Sedum acre in the Diastictus (Trans, iv, 122) sand-pit on Knettishall Heath 22 June.

Reduvius personatus, L., was on a Lakenheath window 24 June (I. C. Clift) and Nabis major, Cst., profuse in Creeting gravel-pits 8 Aug. Piesma capitata, Wlf., was swept at Thelnetham July ; Temnostethus pusillus, HS., at Brandeston ; and Cardiastethus fasciiventris, Grb., beaten from Spruce at Blybro on 11 April.

Acetropis Gimmerthali, Fl., & Mecomma ambulans, Fall., abounded in Thelnetham Fen in June, with Halticus apterus, L., in July.

Oncotylus viridiflavus, Gz., was on Knapweed at Barking in Aug., Onychumenus decolor, Fall, and Stenotus binotatus, F., at Bentley Woods 25 July. Among the Frog-hoppers Centrotus cornutus, L., was taken at Boxhill in Surrey during June (Btn) and Tettigonia viridis, L., at Brandeston in July ; Strongylocephalus agrestis, Fall., at Blythbro Wood on 15 July, with both Doratura stylata, Boh. and Deltocephalus Argus, Msh., on Bentley Woods heath 25 July.

Chlorita viridula, Fall, and Cixius nervosus, L., were in Thelnetham Fen with Araopus pulchellus, Ct. and Chloriona prasinula, Fieb., on 22 June ; C. glaucescens, Fieb. and Delphax pellucida, F., in Blythbro Wood on 15 July. Psylla pineti, Fl., was beaten at Haiesworth on 10 April ; Trioza Urtica, L., swept at Brandeston and T. galii, Fst., at Thelnetham. The warm, dry spring propogated Aphides : several Chaitophagus aceris, L., on Maple in Soham paddock were parasitized by the Braconid Trioxys aceris, Hai., by 13 May ; and a beautiful apterous female of Lachnus

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105

viminalis, Fnsc., sitting on Ash trunk by Sallow in Cretingham watery wood on 1 Sept., lay seven larvae in the course of twelve hours ; in life she has the basal third of four posterior tib'ae bright red. Scale Insects were represented by numerous Chionaspis salicis, L., on Aspen twigs at Bentley, 7 June ; and profuse Lecanium capreae, L., on one twig of Alder in Blythbro Wood, by the heath, on 3 1 May.—CLAUDE M O R L R Y .

NEUROPTERA : Anax N E W TO SUFFOLK.—Our Hon. Secretary's rediscovery of Cordylia cenea in the County, at Linstead Magna last year (Trans, v, 38), stimulated the desire for another visit this spring, which, being undertaken on 30 May, confirmed their survival there in good numbers [also at a pond in Cratfield on 26th.

Ed.]. Feeling that they might occur at other spots, I tried the only likely piece of considerable water available to war-time transport facilities, viz. the Lake in Heveningham Park ; and here I was pleased to find them in even greater plenty, being commoner than Libellula depressa, L., which seems to prefer dykes and streams to more open water, and was found by Mr. Morley on 22 June in great numbers in Thelnetham Fen. On 11 June I long watched a pair of large and active Dragonflies over the above Lake, of which the 9 was ovipositing on Water-lily leaves. Upon one of the 's rare dashes to shore I made a wild stroke with my net and missed him ; but, when I looked inside, I saw him clinging to the outside of the net. This fine specimen I found on identification to be Anax imperator, Lch., the largest British Dragonfly and NEW to Suffolk. Others of the kind were seen later that month, but it was far from common and very wary. High winds were against collecting on most of my free days ; but sixteen species of Odonata were seen at the Lake, the last and least common being JEschna mixta, Latr., in Sept. and on 3 October, of which only four were noted there and one other in Lowestoft. There, too, Sympetrum sanguineum, Müll., Calopteryx splendens, Harr., bestes sponsa, Hans, and Erythromma najas, Hans., occurred sparingly amidst a host of common Agriones.—P. J. BURTON, 3 Oct.

After M r . Burton's brilliant discovery for the first time in Suffolk of Britain's largest Dragonfly, and extension of the local ränge of Cordylia, at a hitherto quite unworked lake (and how many unworked districts Suffolk yet possesses !), the rest of this year's Neuroptera make a sorry show through neglect. Sympetrum sanguineum was netted in Monks Soham lanes on 24 July ; and close to Southwold pier on 1 Oct. Empty nymph-skins of Calopteryx splendens found by the Deben at ßrandeston, with those of the rather sparse Ephemera vulgata, L., in late May ; there were also many Baetis Rhodani, Pt., on 12 June. Chrysopa perla, L., turned u p at Knettishall Heath on 22nd and C. prasina, Ram., in Blythboro Wood on 30 August. T h e only Waterflies noticed on the Deben at Brandeston were the very general Leptocerus senilis, Brm., on

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8 June ; Hydropsyche instabilis, Ct., on 12 to 26th; a n d P o l y c e n t ropus flavimaculatus, Pt., from 15 May to 12 June.—On the warm but very dull and sunless afternoon of 12 September, while sitting at tea, we had the pleasure of witnessing the wonderful exploit of AZschna cyanea, Müll., that is detailed at Trans, iv, 253, exactly repeated with the same species of Fly sitting upon about the former spot on the same ceiling : so much was no haphazard glance, but shows perpetual vigilance upon the Dragonfly's part. The species was seen in Reydon up to 1 Oct. (Baker) & JE. mixta in Blythbro Wood on 4 t h . — C L A U D E MORLEY. BLUE-UNDERWINGED MOTH DETAILS.—I find details o) onr eighth Catocala fraxini, said to have been taken by mv uncle Mr. Henry Miller in August 1872 ' at Ipswich ' (SNS. Mem. 1937, 50). The references to him in the Garrett article of our last Trans, amused me, and I was moved to turn up his newspapercuttings : at the 10 December 1872 conversazione of the Ipswich Science Gossip Club exhibits comprised a case of Butterflies, &c, from Mr. Miller's collection, including the " very rare moth, C. fraxini, captured on 24 August this year by Mr. C. Bruff in the grounds of Handford Hall " [which stood near Handford Bridge over the Gipping on London Road, W. of the town. 15th Century Manor-rolls of ' Handford Hall' are in British Museum (Add. MS. 25011); it probably descended from the Domesday-book Roger of Poictou.—Ed.]. I do not know who C. Bruff was, but Handford Lodge was the home of Peter Bruff, the civil engineer from whom my uncle learnt his engineering.—H. R. LINGWOOD.

Hadena ochroleuca, ESP., AT BARKING.—-It may be added to Trans, iv, pp. 130 & 257, that in 1943 Mr. Geoff.' Burton took a freshly-emerged specimen on 28 July and I saw a rather worn one on Ragwort flower in the westerly rough pasture by the wood on 1 August (E. W. PLATTEN). I saw thirty or forty at Drinkstone in late July and early August, and took a series (F. G. BARCOCK).

This very local Noctua, whose larva feeds on the ubiquitous Grass Dactylis glomerata, seems confined to chalk with us. Protracted searches in loco quo by Mr. P. J. Burton and your Hon. Secretary on 8-10 August revealed but two worn males, sitting quiescently on Knapweed-heads in dull weather. The question, as to whether it were a day-flyer or remained on the flowers from the previous night, was settled by discovering one on Knapweed through which we had brushed only five minutes before.—Ed. EMPEROR MOTH WIDE-SPREAD.—A nice and exceptionally early 5 of Saturnia pavonia, L., that had been found in the open at Theberton, was brought me on 3 April (GEORGE J. BAKER, Reydon ; 4 April). A fine 5 with a nice batch of eggs on an Elm-twig, was brought me at the beginning of May ; and from the same road, a mile further south, I had a larva last September (A. P. WALLER,

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Waldringfield ; 21 M a y ) . Several $ $Pavonia were noted from 5 M a y onwards in m y Drinkstone garden ; they appeared to be much attracted to Romneya Coutteri and several times I saw them flying round certainly this p l a n t : I suspected the presence of a ? in the vicinity, but was unable to find one (F. G. BARCOCK, 1 J u l y ) .

A large larva, found devouring wild Raspberry at Thelnetham on 15 July, spun on 25th 1942, and emerged a small 5 on 15 April 1943. A small larva, found in Monks Soham ' Broadway ' on 10 August 1943, spun up at once (Ed.).—One $ taken in Reydon on 13 M a y ; a half-dozen larvae were brought me from Clopton near Woodbridge on 3 Aug (Baker).

L A R V A L VAR. OF DEATHS-HEAD H A W K - M O T H . — I saw an Acherontia Atropos, L., at Rougham on 26 August at 10.30 p.m. and a pupa has been given me ( B A R C O C K ) ; larva at Trimley (Dow), two at Waldringfield (WALLER) and one about 2 | inches on length in Ipswich garden on 20 August ( M R . P . FORTIN, 1 4 7 W h i t b y road there, in lit. 23 Aug.).—To-day a Caterpillar of Deaths-head Hawk has come for inspection, which differs from usual colour.

T h e second and third segments are largely white, remainder of body is dusky with an oblique blackish network, and horn with grey granules. T h i s var. is not mentioned by Kirby, but conforms exactly with Fig. 206 in Spuler's Raup. Schmett. Europ. [of the occurrence of which in Britain we are unaware. Such pigmental forms usually depend upon some peculiar pabulum.—Ed.]. T h e r e is a report of D. lineata having been taken in Ipswich about 20 September.—MR. H. E. P. SPENCER, Ipswich M u s e u m ; 25 Sept.

STRIPED H A W K - M O T H S . — T h e season improved as August progressed and for me culminated on 21st, upon which evening I caught a large and quite perfect female of Deilephila lineata, Fab. (Livornica, Esp.), flying at Nicotiana-flower in my garden at Drinkstone. Shortly after netting it, I saw another very rapidflying M o t h at the same flower-bed but, unfortunately, it made off upon m y approach. Later three others in good condition were taken in this garden : females on 29 Aug. and 11 Sept., and a male on 17 Sept. F. G. BARCOCK.—One was plainly seen, hovering with its probiscis in corolla of a Nicotiana-flower, in garden of Fairfield House in Leiston just before dusk on 29 August. DR. D. G . GARNETT ; in Local Paper, 2 3 Sept. [Previously noted in Suffolk only at Thetford 1857 ; Felixstow 1904 ; Gorleston 1931.

This year single and gregarious specimens have been reported from all over England in greater plenty than, perhaps, ever.—Ed.] M O T H S OF 1 9 4 3 . — O n the whole, I think this has been a poor season for Moths : flowers have had little attraction for them, owing to the abundance of Aphides' honeydew on Nettles, the north winds of July and draught of August also contributed to reduce their numbers. Before those N. winds, however, honey-

108

OBSERVATIONS.

dew was swarming with common Noctuids, Pronuba being wel! to the fore. In the absence of late spring-frosts this year, Lilies have put up a fine show, as have most garden-shrubs : both Fuliginosa and Mendica have been taken in my garden at Drinkstone ; a ? Villica, captured at Semer, left me with a small family of larvae (Barcock), a pair at rest in Martlesham garden on 9 June (Mrs Lingwood) and one Aying in sun at Belstead church 12 June (Geoffrey Burton). Confusalis on Oaks at Bulchamp Workhouse and Brandeston in May (Mly). Chlorana was not to be found at Badley on 26 June (GBtn) ; a freshly emerged Bicolorana netted in Drinkstone garden 5 July (Faulkener) ; where Prasinana larvae were noted (Bcock.) Rumicis at Monks Soham on 7 Aug. (P. J. Burton) ; Megacephala at Bosmere 4 June (GBtn) ; one fine Umbra in Needham garden 20 June (John Burton) ; Nictitans & Conigera on Knapweed flower Barking Wood 8-10 Aug. (Btn) ; a worn male of the rare C-nigrum first brood among grass, Monks Soham paddock 15 June (Mly) ; Reticulata Needham garden 11 June, with Dentina on 8th and, sitting on Elm in Bentley Wood lane, Nebulosa on 12th (GBtn) ; Advena common at dusk that month at Walpole (Btn). First Flexula found here was in my garden 5 July (Bcock) ; no Pastinum at Thelnetham 30 July, but Mi was at Chediston Hall 28 May (Mly) and Glyphica in Felsham Wood 28 June (Bcock). A very few Luctuosa at both Barking Wood and Brandeston (Btn) ; Iota at Needham Valerian flower 6 June (GBtn) and Gamma wide-spread but in no unusual numbers (Mly). Pudibunda larvae commoner in autumn 1942 in both SufFolk and near Norwich than I have ever known them (H. E. Chipperfield, Blackpool, 15 March) ; Chrysorrhoa=simi\is larvae found to eat small Apples at Needham 10 June ; and Vitalbata at Needham causeway 1 Ith (GBtn.). One Undulata in Blyboro Wood on 15 July (Hocken). A $ Papilionaria, bred from Drinkstone garden 1942, emerged late on 5 July 1943, with Fulvata there in June and Heparata both there on 28 June (Bcock) and in Thelnetham Fen 30 July (Mly). One Albicillata sitting on Spruce-fir trunk Brandeston Wood 19 June ; Limitata appeared in Monks Soham lanes first on 21 July (Mly) ; and a worn Procellata was in Barking Woods 7 July (GBtn). A notable capture was a single Abraxas sylvata, sitting on small Elm-trunk in Bentley Woods lane at noon on 25 July (P. J. Burton) ; this profuse western Moth is so scarce in Suffolk that we have no record since 1896 ! Temer ata appeared 12 May and, with Bimaculata, and one Margaritaria, was common in Monks Soham paddock, as was Macularia in Bentley Woods as usual, with Petraria.

Pusaria appeared on 19 June, at Brandeston (Mly) ; and in late June Syringaria from Needham garden laid over sixty eggs in strings of 8-9 each (GBtn). Larvae of Derasa and Batis were in Drinkstone garden (Bcock) ; Octogesima bred from Bentley larvae on 10 June (Btn) ; and Ridens noted at Needham (Platten).

109

OBSERVATIONS.

A dozen Fuciformis were in woods at Felsham on 1 June (Bcock) and at Bentley on 16 May (Btn) ; at Valerian flowers in Needham on 6-19 June were several Porcellus (GBtn) that was common at Wal pole on lOth (Btn) and of which one was picked up dead in South Cove chyd on 25 May (Mr. R. S, Girling of Wrentham); its larvae occurred in Drinkstone garden with those and in March a pupa of Elpenor.

There, too, were three Ligustri larvae (Bcock).

Thence from Leiston (Garnett) and Aldringham (Lay), as well as at Hollesley on 11 Sept. (Daily Paper) imago Convolvuli have been reported at flowers just after dusk. In Needham garden a pair of Tilliae on 6 June laid 80 eggs, whose larvae went down about 8 Aug. (GBtn). Curtula and Tremula larvae in Drinkstone garden (Bcock); and several Dromedarius bred from Blythbro Woods (Btn). A just-vacated r? Cossus pupa was jutting from gate-post at Needham causeway 11 June. Tipuliformis commoner than usual, five in gardens there 4-12 June (GBtn) ; one Formiciformis on sunny outskirt of Brandeston Wood 19 June (Mly) ; and several, the last thence I fear, Vespiformis bred on 10 June from the North Holton oak-stool of Trans, iv, 269 (P. J. Burton).

SPARSE

CLOUDED-YELLOW

BUTTERFLIES.—Miss

Watkins

of

Henley, a reliable informant, teils me she saw a specimen of Colias edusa there on 6 June (CANON WALLER). One was observed by me at Drinkstone on the morning of 4 July ; and fully a dozen but only two females here between 21 August and 14 Sept ( F . G .

BARCOCK). I noticed two at Coddenham on 31 July and one at H e m i n g s t o n e o n 2 5 t h (JOHN BURTON, v . v . , 8

Aug).

One

was

seen by me about 8 a.m. on 18 August by the roadside at Finningham ( T h e Revd. T . A. PYTCHES, M.A., in lit. 21 Aug.). Very plentiful round Portsmouth in Hants this August (P. G .

FAULKENER). One seen in mid-August at Martlesham (Revd.

HENRY WALLER). I noticed one at Henny Magna on 21 August last ; it was quite common about Sudbury in 1940 (H. A. PETTITT,. in lit. 25 Aug.). T h e final specimen was seen by me as early as 4 September flying in Waldringfield (CANON WALLER), excepting one at D e d h a m

on

13th

(VINTER).

GREGARIOUS SLEEP OF Parage Megaera.—The 8 August last was a dull day of stirf S W . breeze and pretty constant slight drizzle.

At 4 p.m. one Megaera was noticed sitting, in its usual oblique attitude when in a vertical position, upon a brick wall at Monks Soham : it had deliberately selected the weather-excavated hollow of a half-brick for protection from wet, though fully facing the wind. At 7 p.m. it had not moved ; and I then found no less than seven specimens almost touching inter se beneath only the NE. angle of the second stone (Trans, v, p. 45) in my paddock, with an eighth sitting vertically on the timber post beneath the projecting tip of that stone immediately below them. Cons.ant Observation had revealed no Butterflies under either stone this summer.—CLAUDE

MORLEY.

110

OBSERVATIONS.

Limenitis Sibylla IN GORLESTON.—I thought last year the worst possible one for Lepidoptera, but the present has beaten it and I have been able to do practically nothing ; we had 3 | months' solid drought here which put an end to all collecting. Late on 4 July I found a dead L. Sibylla on the pavement by my house near Gorleston Station ; it appeared to have been trodden upon very recently, as wings and body were still quite limp. This is the first record, I believe, of the species in this NE. extremity of the County. We had had much west wind and it might have blown from Fritton, where Member Rumbelow is said to have seen one a few years ago. Tt has been almost impossible to get about, even to Fritton, where, both in early summer and September, there was scarcely a larva to be beaten : it used to be second best to only Blythburgh Wood in this respect. Great damage was done to the wqods at Fritton by the bad gales in January and March, when hundreds of Pines and Larches were blown down. Next year, at the present rate, will be no ' season 'atall ! HopeotherMembers have had better luck than I.—JOHN L. MOORE, 4 Oct. ANOTHER NOTABLE SURVIVAL.—I can give you the startling news that Thecla betulae, L., is N O T extinct in Suffolk ! One magnificent female on 2 August flew off Sloe-bushes just outside Bentley Woods and dropped on to a Thistle-head in the midst of Brambles. Four times it made off as I tried boxing, and at last I lost sight of it among some bushes ; a two-hours' wait showed no more of it. A non-capture is often an unsatisfactory record ; but here the conspicuous orange blotch and underside russet with white bars were quite distinct from T. W-album.

I am sure of its identity. It was at the very spot where W. H. Harwood of Colchester, Tim Last and Calver of Ipswich, used to take this species; the final capture of which I am aware was made here by Harry Eaton, porter at Ipswich Museum, about 1890, and he pointed it out to me soon afterwards. Mr. Lingwood of Needham, also, took it in these woods about that year..—E. W. P L A T T E N ; 4 Aug. 1 9 4 3 .

[All which records, except Harwood's, are unpublished and additional to SNS. Memoir 1937, p. 111, where now delete the asterisk.—Ed.] SWALLOW-TAIL

AND OTHER

BUTTERFLIES ROUND

SUDBURY.—

On a hill by the River Stour at Sudbury I captured a fine specimen oiPapilio Machaon on 19 August 1940. That summer I spent in the district, which I had not visited since 1 9 1 5 - 2 3 when Sibylla, W-album and C-album were most difficult to find, though in 1940 all three were quite common.—HORACE A. PETTITT, 2 5 Northgatestreet, Bury ; 25 August.

LARVA OF Machaon IN SUFFOLK.—One caterpillar of the Swallowtailed Butterfly was found on 18 September last (by Miss Long, I believe) feeding on ordinary cultivated Carrot in a Pakefield garden near the south Lowestoft Golf course, which here slopes down to

OBSERVATIONS.

111

marshy land. It was practically fully fed and, after a few more days, pupated satisfactorily. This seems a most interesting isolated British example of reversion to the species' very general Continental habit of ubiquitous distribution, quite irrespective of fenland.—JACK GODDARD ; 7 Oct. INTERESTING A S S O C I A T I O N . — I am enclosing a specimen of a fine Papilio [P. Demolocus, Esper., J ] that is local in both Sierra Leone and Senegal but becomes common in Gambia, where I found il on 17 July 1943 at Bathurst being devoured by a large green Praying Mantis, which genus I had always imagined to be vegetarians. I have been out of sandy Senegal for the last month and have been Iiving in Bathurst, where my collecting has been crowned with overwhelming success. What a place it is to be sure ! It beats even Sierra Leone which is saying a great deal, for in the latter the Entomology as a whole was exceptionally good, the numerous captures will need much critical naming bsfore they become presentable to Sufrolk Naturalists.—FRANK C . S T A N L E Y , c/o B.N.L.O. Dakar ; 4 Aug. 1943, per Marine Mail.

A T W A L S H A M - L E - W I L L O W S . — I t may be worth recording that I have seen several Great spotted Wood-peckers in my garden, and Vanessa C-album seem to be getting quite common. Also during the spring and summer have appeared two V. polychloros with 5. semele, Thecla rubi, W. album and quercus.

One Colias hyale is the first seen for forty years, so it is, I think, very scarce in this County.—GORDON DAVEY, Finches Bottom, Walsham ; 2 3 Aug. BUTTERFLIES OF 1943.—No doubt is entertainable that the peculiarly mild winter and open spring of this year promoted Mould and Mildew to such an extent as to materially reduce the numbers of all early emergences among Lepidoptera. This was appreciable throughout our County ; yet enough survived to render second broods, smiled upon by Sol, usually well above the average. None of outstanding rarity appeared, excepting Mr. Platten's above great re-discovery. Only one worn Euphrosyne was seen in Felsham Wood on 1 June (The most interesting 1942 Transactions arrived safely : Barcock) ; a few in Bentley Woods 16 May (P. J. Burton). Adippe emerged at Knettishall Heath on 22 June (Morley) and, with Sibylla, were quite as numerous as is usual in the Bentlev ones ; in Felsham Wood on 28 June where, too, were seven fin ePaphia (Bcock), of which a few worn J ? survived at Barking to 10 Aug. (Btn). Comma appeared in my Gorleston garden in Oct. 1942 for the third year in succession, so it seems established here now (Moore) ; a few after hibernation at Waldringfield, but new brood from 5 July only singly, (Waller) and Chediston (Mly) ; one in early April, and several last year, at Gislingham (Revd. T. A. Pytches) ; several sunning themselves in Drinkstone garden before 23 March, and later larvae found on Lim (Bcock); less numerous about Needham than 1942 and Var.

112

OBSERVATIONS.

Pallidior alone noticed (Platten) ; very wide-spread, new brood appcared at Knettishall 22 June ( M l y ) ; first seen in my Felixsiow garden 25 July (Geoffery M. French). Polychloros certaiuiy increases in numbers and a few specimens are visible wherever one goes here. Parham Wood, Walpole, &c (Btn) ; nearly permanent in my Haiesworth garden (Hocken) ; Creeting and Needham (GBtn) ; plentiful after Hibernation at Waldringfield (Waller) and Chediston ; one in April at Gislingham (Pytches).

[Antiopa : An unrecorded (SNS. Memoir i, 106) $ , taken at " Stowmarket, Sept. 1877.—H. W. Baker," was sold in good condition in London on 11 Feb. 1943 (sec. Sale Catalogue).]

Atalanta and Cardui: sparse but wide-spread ; the latter at Cotton (GBtn), Barking Wood, Monks Soham, &c (Mly) ; I observed one Painted Lady on 11 June here in Aberdeenshire, where it seems of rare occurrence ; and I see in The Times of 15 June reports of an immigration in Cornwall. How I wish we could have an August Meeting of the Suffolk Naturalists ! (Nancy Cracknell, at Fyvie Castle ; 16 June). Sibylla : confirmed at Chediston Hall and increasing in Blythbro Wood, 15 July (Hocken); over at Hinderclay Heath by 30 July (Mly). Semele appeared on Knettishall Heath by 22 June : single specimens outside Brandeston Wood in July (Mly) and three in my Needham garden 3 Aug. (J. Burton). Thecla W-album : only one at Brandeston on 17 July, where were dozens last year (Mly) ; it is, I believe, commoner in Suffolk than Hants, so I was very surprised at taking a $ on 7 July in my New Forest garden on Heracleum with noElm near it (Dr. Haines). Argiolus and Cardamines flying freely at Waldringfield 18 April (Waller) ; latter at Westall on 15th and first brood of former rare at Monks Soham, where second was unusually numerous (Mly). On 2 May I caught at Walpole a midget Napi, which was only 34 mm. in expanse, though the average is 50 mm. (P. J. Burton, 3 May).—My chief news is that Fm married, and have had a honeymoon-cum-entomology trekking in the Kashmir forests : my wife swore, when engaged, she would never bug-hunt but, lo and behold, there she went net in hand up a steep cliff for Machaon, and caught two ! Best wishes to all good Suffolcians (E. P. Wiltshire, British Consulate General, Basra, 1 Nov. 1942).—One of several Skippers I took home from Bentley Woods on 25 July I find to be Lineola from this new and Suffolk's most northern locality, though it is a score of miles south of Wicken Fen to which the species is known to extend in Cambs (P. J. Burton, 5 Aug.).—C. H. S. VINTER. MICROLEPIDOPTERA.—As far as my few observations go, this year has been a bad one for Lepidoptera. In Micros. I have nothing to report, with the exception of Ephestia Kuehnella, Zell., which has been a perfect pest in a bag of too-long stored flour in my house ; this I enclose, with the solitary parasite bred from it [a 5 Angitia and not this cosmopolitan wrecker's usual Ichneu-

113

OBSERVATIONS.

mon, Nemeritis canescens, Gr., which accompanies it in flour round the world : south Europe, Asia Minor, Japan, Victoria, NS. Wales, Sandwich Is., &c.—Ed.], Laspeyresia funebrana, Trts., has been a nuisance on Plums, and so has L. pomonella, L., on Apples. I am sorry this is all. May we soon get to more normal times again : things are certainly moving !—A. P. W A L L E R ; Waldringfield, 21 Sept. [Most of our Microlepidopterists are otherwise engaged at present ; and we have seen little of interest beyond three examples of Meliphora grisella, F., flying both inand out-doors near a strong Honey Bees' nest inside the piasterwall of my Monks Soham house on 10 July and 3-4 August.

M R . J I M B U R T O N found Argyroploce salicella, L., sitting at five feet from ground on Willow trunks at Brandeston on 8 lune and 12 July.—Ed.] A H A L F - D O Z E N T I N E / E . — D ü r i n g the last four years I have met with Telphusa luculella, Hb., at Blythbro Wood in June ; Hyponomeuta evonymella, L., at Benacre in July ; Coleophora albidella, H.S., at Mildenhall in July, a great extension of its known local ränge ; Lithocolletis spinicolella, Z., at Lowestoft in May ; Eidophasia Messingella, Z., at Blythbro Wood in July, the first for a half-century in Suffolk ; and Eriocrania Sparmannella, Bsc., there in May. Depressaria purpurea, Haw., was flying with other Tortricids in the garden of Chedeston Hall on 12 April last; there, too were three Vanessa polychloros and a V. c-album.—JACK GODDARD ;

7

Oct.

W I N T E R GNATS.—At one p.m. on 15 November, I was trying to compute the number in a swarm of about fifty Trichocera hiemalis, DeG., that was dancing about eight feet above the lawn, fairlv steadily and distinctly separated from each other inter se.

Suddenly during the computation, I became aware of an appearance like smoke about four feet above the grass, that resolved itself into about five hundred distinctly smaller male Gnats, dancing in a very dense cloud and undulating far more readily than the Trichocerae with every slight air-current Coming through a Privet-hedge to the south of them. I took samples of both masses and found the latter to be pretty surely Spaniotoma stercoraria.

DeG., often common at Monks Soham light in late October.— CLAUDE

MORLEY.

SHORT-PALPED

CRANE-FLIES

NEW

TO

SUFFOLK.—Recently

I

have been working out the local species of these fascinating little Daddy-longlegs, which used to be regarded as a distinct family (Limnobidae, Trans, ii, 39), but are now termed a subfamily (Limoniinae) of the family Tipulidas. Among them four names must be omitted : Erioptera lutea, of which only its var. tcenionota, Mg., is British; Unicincta, Meij., is a synonym of Ormosia hederce, Ct. ; Similis, Schum (Trans, i, 228), is Symplecta stictica, Mg. ; and Armatus, Meij., is Molophilus appendiculatus, Stieg.

114

OBSERVATIONS.

On the other hand, six kinds are added in Edwards' 1938 paper : Dicranota bimacidata, Schum, Gonomyia lucidula, Meij., G. recta, Tonn., all from ' Suffolk ' ; Erioptera Meijeri, Edw. and E.fusculenta, Edw. both from ' Orford ' ; and Molophilus ochrescens, Edw., from ' Monks Soham.' All this adds two species to the Suffolk L i s t ; and I now bring forward thirteen more : Limonia trivittata, Schum, from Henham in June ; L. macrostigma, Schum, and Taphrophila virtripennis, Mg., from Blythburgh W o o d ; Limnophila aperta, Verr., Fritton Lake in June ; L. abdominalis, Stg. and L. sepium, Verr., Blythburgh Wood; L.filata, Walk., and Lipsothrix remota, Walk., Heveningham Lake, latter also at Fritton; Erioptera griseipennis, Mg., common throughout the Haiesworth district; Rhypholophus bifurcatus, Goet., Heveningham Park; Molophilus bihamatus, Meij., Wissett ; M. serpentiger, Edw., Heveningham Park ; and M. medius, Meij., abundant in waste ground in Haiesworth district. I shall be most grateful for all specimens of Tipulidae that Members can send me.—(DR) M E L V I L L E H O C K E N , Market Place, Haiesworth ; 2 2 Oct. O V I P O S I T I O N OF Limnophila punctata, S C H R . — I was collecting Elaphrus riparius, Pterostichus nigrita, Stenns guttula, Trogophlxus rivularis, Lestiva longelytrata, Heterocerus fuscidus, Bembidium articulatum & littorale in hot sunshine and a stiff W. breeze at Cretingham, on the sandy mud washed down by the River Deben in winter spates about 2 p.m. on 17 April last. Suddenly my eye was attracted by a movement, among some young Water Mint, which I found caused by a fine and dark-winged Crane-fly, Standing high on all six legs that were expanded laterally from the thorax and boring her ovipositor, with a side-to-side rotary motion, into damp mud that underlay the sand, six inches from but hardly higher than the stream-water. So engrossed was she in the task that I whisked a box over her before danger became scented. Just a week later two males were flushed at 1 p.m. from margin-herbage at the same spot, where I could find none later in the year. Dr. Hocken teils me the species is L. (Pcecilostola) punctata, a little-known kind, recorded with us from only Cornard Parva (Trans, ii, 40).

S T R A T I O M Y I D A E IN 1943.—To Suffolk's mild spring musi be attributed the unusual plentitude of all Diptera and cspecially of several distinctly rare early Stratiomyids, most of whose larvae live in water and inhale oxygen through their telescopic tails, protruded above the surface-film. On the contrary, the later drought caused summer kinds to be particularly sparse. Thus Pachygaster ater, Mg., was noticed only in June at Haiesworth and on 16 July at Monks Soham, when a female laid an incomplete chain of twenty-one eggs. T h e ovipositor is a yellow tube as long as rest of abdomen, of four decreasing segments, whence from the apical are extruded the elongate, shining, pure-white cylindrical eggs

OBSERVATIONS.

115

in a continuous string resembling sausages with each basal ly overlapping the last like tiles, but interattachment so slight that when dry they fall apart. P. Leachi, Ct., was on Poplar-leaf in Monks Soham lanes on 8 July. Mr. P. J. Burton made ' the catch of the season ' at Brandeston on the sunless 6 June, when at 2.30 p.m. he swept from Sparganium ramosum growing in the little River Deven a beautiful 2 of Oxycera analis, Mg. (NEW to Suffolk), of which a very few examples during 1 June-17 July from Dorset in 1838-78 and Hereford in 1890-1908 alone are British : persistent visits to its spot revealed none later, though on 17 July the local O. pulchella, Mg., was in the same Situation at noon. Both sexes of Nemotelus pantherinus, L., abounded in an adjacent cattle-marsh during 22 May-26 June. Three or four Odontomyia argentata, F., were sitting in sun on leaves of Caltha palustris in the same marsh at 2 p.m. on 15 May, but I could detect none later; and a dozen O. tigrina, F., on those of Alisma plantago in Cratfield and Linstead ponds at midday on 26 May. Of Stratiomys potamida, Mg., the first ever seen at Monks Soham was sitting on Heracleum flower in my paddock at 11 a.m. on 13 July, and a half-dozen were netted as they successively flew in a small patch of sunshine four inches above the low wet herbage inside Brandeston Wood at noon on 3rd-17th. With the last Sargus cupramis, L., mingled in some numbers on both latter dates ; S. nitidus, Mg., was captured beside the moat at South Elmham AU SS. churchyard on 27 May ; and S. iridatus, Scp., at Chedeston Hall and on Dr. Hocken's Haiesworth house-window on 28th. The common Chloromyia formosa, Scp., abounded for an unusually short period from 12 June at Thelnetham Fen, Bentley, Barking and Parham woods, Brandeston, &c. Microchrysa polita, L. first appeared 28 June, but was curiously rare, as was Chorisops tibialis, Mg., from 13 August : none of the abundant Beres were seen at all. Finally, at dusk on 16 July I was delighted to take the second Suffolk specimen of Xylomyia marginata, Mg., on the very window of Monks Soham House whereat the first occurred on 10 July 1924 ; in all Britain it is recorded from only Cambs and Suffolk. At rest this charming Fly stands low on its half-spread legs with wings folded horizontally flat over abdomen and forming, with thoracic disc and elevated headcrown, one plane ; in life the ' yellow ' markings are of pale primrose-colour. X. maculata, Mg., was bred in the New Forest during June 1917 by Mr. E. C. Bedwell, our Member.—C. M. F E W BITING F L I E S — I t is a most curious fact that I have seen only three specimens of Mosquitos (Culicidae) during the last three years in North Devon, despite the long periods I have spent by rivers and in marshy districts. The only really biting Fly here is Hcematopota pluvialis, L. (Tabanidae), which is very common and active. Nor have I been attacked by Ceratopogon Midges, although I have fished at dusk and gardened in the

116

OBSERVATIONS.

eveningtime. I expect the probable cause of immunity to be the scarcity of stagnant water : water, indeed, is everywhere, even upon the hill-tops, but it is practically always running and clear.— ( D R . ) DUDLEY W . COLLINGS, North Tawton, Devon ; 1 8 Aug. [And one might go far in Britain without finding a nearer resemblance to the notoriously malarious Roman campagna than the totally marsh-encircled town of Southwold !—Ed.] Myiolepta luteola, G M E L . , IN SUFFOLK.—Rarely in my sixty years' experience of Entomology—I teemed a potful of Water-beetles into my governess's lap at Newark in 1883 !—have I feit a greater shock than on 26 July last. I was examining the numerous flower-heads of Cows-parsley (Heracleum sphondylium) growing over an extensive bed of JEgopodium podagraria plants in my Monks Soham paddock at 10 a.m., when upon one of them I instantly recognised and boxed a 5 Myiolepta luteola with her wing-edges badly frayed. This Syrphid Fly has been hitherto always supposed confined in Britain to the New Forest, where I have found it to be very locally common in only certain years : at Matley Bog on CEnanthe crocata flowers in early July 1929-40 ; but just emerged from puparium and sitting on an old Beech-trunk at Ramnor on 28 June 1930 ; on Bramble flowers at Mark Ash in 1932 ; at Rhinefields Sandys on 25 June 1934 ; Parkhill and Clay Hill in Lyndhurst on umbels in 1936 ; and at Butts Lawn there, and plentifully on the flowers of JE. podagraria as early as 8 June 1940. Hence our specimen is a very late survival, with which its abraided condition duly accords ; and, since its lifehistory remains still unknown, the at least occasional association both here and in Hants with Gout-weed seems suggestive.

Verrall shows its Continental distribution to be easterly from south Sweden to Trieste. CLAUDE MORLEY.—If you publish your remarkable paddock specimen, you could add that, at the fieldmeeting of the Cambridge Congress in 1936, we took M. luteola at the approach to Wicken Fen in Cambs, where Mr. Wainwright caught the first one in a sweeping-net. Mr. E. R. GOFFE, Kings Somborne, Hants ; 15 Sept.

FLY UNRECORDED FROM B R I T A I N . — I captured a curious male Anthomyid on 23 May 1898 at a flower in Oulton Broad, Suffolk, while I was staying with Mr. E. C. Bedwell and his parents at Carlton Colville there. As I have vainly watched for nearly a half-century for some record of its occurence elsewhere with us, it is high time to publish the circumstance. The late Revd.

E. N. Bloomfield sent it at the time to Dr. R. H. Meade, who told me (in lit. June 1898) I possessed " one very interesting species which, I think, is not recorded as British and is very peculiar.

The wings ally it to the Anthomyids, but it has the head and antennae of the Tachinids, forming a link between the two families.

It is your No. 22 and belongs to the genus Dialyta of Meigen

OBSERVATION3.

117

[1826], which contains the species D. erinacia, Fall. Low describes another species, D. atriceps that seems to correspond very closely to your specimen. I hope more individuals may turn up." Though later the same spot has been frequently worked, no more have been noted there ; but on 29 May 1929 I took a female on herbage at Brandon staunch, at the other north end of Suffolk. Superficially it strongly resembles a rather clearwinged Pogonomyia, though radically differing in its strongly pilose eyes and centrally obsolete discal suture ; from Hyetodesia the oval abdomen and but subpubescent arista separate it.— CLAUDE MORI.EY ; 2 0 N o v . 1943.

REMARKABLE SUFFOLK FLIES OF 1 9 4 3 . — O n e of m a n y J }

of

the Wheat Midges, Contarinia tritici, Kirby (Trans. Linn. Soc. 1798, 230 ; 1799, 96), that were flying up and down inside M S (=Monks Soham) windows at noon on 27 June, laid eggs which are white with very slight yellow tint, cylindrical, gently and equally rounded at each extremity and 2| times as long as their central breadth, the upper surface having three prominent longitudinal ridges throughout its length ; length about that of the J 's extruded apical segment of some -J-mm. The species was noted there and at Knettishall Heath, 18 June to 8 July.—Hormomyia fasciata, Mg. (NEW to Suffolk), was swept in Brandeston marshes 25 June. Dynatosoma fuscirorne, Mg., on Haiesworth window 12 April. Pericoma trivialis, Eat., common at M S throughout at least the summer. Bibio hortensis, L., $ emerged 14 May ; B. Marci, L., emerged at M S 4 May, were abundant on 6th, no 5 seen tili 7th. Tabanns autumnalis, L. and T. bromius, L., Brandeston Wood on respectively 3 and 12 July.

Chrysops sepulchralis, F., by Deben at Brandeston 24 July (Btn). Bombylitis discolor, Mk., Rumburgh at noon 12 April. Thereva plebeja, L., Blythboro workhouse 31 May. Laphria marginaia, L., Brandeston Wood 19 June. Dioctria CElandica, L., several in Bentley Woods on 7 June, one $ with Tenthredopsis literata $ as prey; D. atricapilla, Mg., M S paddock 2 July where u has not been seen before. All Empidae, especially Tachydrominae, were extraordinarily scarce; (Edalea stigmatella, Ztt., on M S window 5 p.m. 10 June. Pipizella lugubris, on flower of Heracleum at Brandeston at 1 p.m. 3 July and Angelica in Parham Wood at dull noon 7 August. Ischyrosyrphus laternarius, Mul., unu?ually prevalent in June everywhere : Brandeston, Cretingham, MS, Thelnetham, Knettishall. Xanthogramma ornatum, Mg., flowers in woods at Bentley 25 July and Cretingham 21 Aug. Vohicella inflata, F., woods at Brandeston 19 June and Barking 8 Aug. Xylota tarda, Mag. (NEW to Suffolk), one in Brandeston Wood 26 June. Helophilus versicolor, F., Chedeston Park 28 May, woods at Bentley 7 June, Blythbro 15 July and many Brandeston 12 June to 17 July but over there by 24th. Oncomyia pusilla, Mg., on Pulicaria flower Barking Wood 10 Aug. Sicus ferrugineus, L.,

118

OBSERVATIONS.

Box Hill in Surrey, June (Btn). Myopa buccata, L., Linstead ponds 26 May ; M. polystigma, Rnd., on Hieracium flower Blythbro workhouse 27 May, and one ? of 10 mm. with expanse of 18 mm. on those of Chaerophyllum in sandy lane at Brandeston at 2 p.m. 22 May. Echinomyia grossa, L., on Bramble flower in Blythbro Wood 3 p.m. 15 July ; and bred by Mr. P. J. Burton on 16 July from its puparium inside pupa of Eriogaster rubi, whose larva was found on Wenhaston Common in Oct. 1942.

Zophomyia carcelia (NEW to Suffolk), on leaf in Bentley Woods 6 June.

Hydrophoria conica, M., Linstead ponds 30 May (Btn). Psila fimetaria, L., one, taken in MS. paddock 1 July, laid several eggs that were fully as long as its head, milk-white, cylindrical and longitudinally finely striate. Lissa loxocerina, Fln., flying and settling on dead Willow trunk inCretinghamwaterywoodinsunat 2 p.m. 12 July ; when at rest the halteres constantly vibrate below the still and horizontally folded wings. Dorycera graminum, F., on old post in Chedeston Park 3 p.m. 28 May, and Eider leaf in Bentley Woods lane 7 June. Rhacochlana toxoneura, Lw., on M S window at 6 p.m. 11 June ; Col. Nurse once, 18 May 1913, took it freely on Willows at Timworth. The third British species of Asteiidae is Asteia elegantula, Ztt., of which the third specimen (cf. EMM. 1904, 4 & 1911, 229) was swept from Agropyron grass at Brandon in late July 1937 (NEW to Suffolk).

Spharocera monilis, Hai., on M S . windows 19 Aug. 1942 and 21 June 1943.

S A W F L I E S OF 1943.—The open winter produced spring Tenthredinidae in unusual numbers, among which were several good species and two previously unnoticed here.- Single Pamphilus hortorum, Klg. (NEW to Suffolk), were flying in sun among Birch over Bramble in midst of Blythburgh Wood at 2 p.m. on 31 May : and among Ash in midst of Brandeston Wood at noon on 12 June.

One Janus cynosbati, F. ? , was swept in Little Ouse marshes N. of Knettishall Heath on 22 June. Xiphydria prolongata, Geof., ovipositing in prone Willow in watery wood at Cretingham 2 p.m.

24 July (Btn; ; Mr. Frohawk gave me a huge ? of 18 mm., labelled on old hand-made paper in faded ink ' Sirex [?] blattalves Augt,' ex coli. Dr. Aiken. Cimbex femorata, L., var varians, Lch., flying in noon sun among Birch in Blythburgh Wood, 29 May. Abiafasciata, L., several on Heracleum flowers by Bentley Woods 25 July. Arge ustulata, L., on Chaerophyllum flower Monks Soham paddock 22 May ; A. fuscipes, Fal., sitting in noon sun on low marsh herbage Bentley Woods 16 May ; A. cyanicrocea, Fst., Monks Soham, Linstead, Thelnetham Fen, 26 May-24 June when a pair was in cop. on Heracleum flower at the last. Cladtus pectinicornis, Frc., Haiesworth 10 April, Monks Soham lanes 5 May & windows 20-1 August; and Hemichroa alni, L., swept in Blythbro Wood 30 August. Pteronus myosotidis, F., at Monks Soham windows in mid-June. Monophadnus ruficruris, Bl., swept in bog Thelnetham Fen 30 July. Pheenusa pygmcea, Klg., among

OBSERVATIONS.

119

Willow at thal Fen and Monks Soham moat in July. Eriocampa ovata, L., Bosmere on 4 June (Geoff. Burton). Emphytus togatus, Pz., a 3 flying at Maple in Monks Soham lanes 5 May ; E. cinctus, L., Brandeston Wood 4 June ; E. calceatus, Klg., Knettishall marshes 22 June. Dolerus dubius, Klg. (NEW to Suffolk), a normal 2 of 11 mm. swept from Rushes in Bentley Woods, at D. triplicatus spot, 7 June ; D. pratensis, L., Thelnetham Fen, common ; D. niger, L., flying Monks Soham garden 21 May ; D. piceipes, Klg., beaten Spruce Blythburgh Wood 11 April.

Males of Macrophya rustica, L., on /Egopodium & Heracleum flowers Bentley Woods, Monks Soham lanes, and Blythburgh workhouse 7 May-8 July ; several ? ? M. albicincta, Sehr., on Chserophyllum flowers Bentley Woods sandy lane 16 May. Allantus flavipes, Frc. (Trans, v, 52), one <? flying in sun at Charlock flower, along with A. scrophularice, in bed of R. Deben at Brandeston in light S. air at 3 p.m. on 8 June.

Tenthredo maculata, Geof., <? beaten Oak by Brandeston Wood 15 (Btn) and 2 beaten in Chedeston Hall garden 28 May ; T. atra, L., on sunny Maple flower in Monks Soham paddock 6 May. Barking Woods in early August produced great numbers of a Tenthredinid larva feeding on Knapweed ; these I failed to breed, and nowhere find any species of this family recorded from Centaurea nigra.

CHRYSIDIDAE iN 1943.â&#x20AC;&#x201D;In general Ruby-tailed Wasps were much scarcer than usual ; but one very remarkable concourse, such as I have not met since 1896, stands out as an oasis in a desert year.

Ellampus auratus, L., was sitting in sun on a tall Polygonum leaf in Monks Soham garden at noon on 2 July. Well Over a dozen speeimens of Hedychrum nobile, Scop., which I have not seen alive since 1901 at Bramford (Trans, iii, 138), were sucking flowers of Heracleum sphondylium in sun just outside N. edge of Bentley Woods, 11 a.m.-3 p.m., on 25 July. Two 2 ? with respectively blue and green head, of Hedychrum intermedium, Dhlb. (rutilans, Dhlb.), were taken (NEW to Suffolk) among the last species, from which they differ apart from their colour in finer and closer abdominal puneturation and far shorter pubescence on both thorax and head ; two British examples in Oxford Museum alone were previously known, one captured at Wandsworth before 1837 (EMM. 1902, 83), and one taken at Lyndhurst in 1899 (I.e.

1914, 138). This little elite coterie on Cow-parsley was completed by two speeimens of Chrysis : the larger is C. viridula, L. (ornata, Sm.), which Mr. Geoffrey Burton also took in these woods on 12 June, visiting Aculeates holes in a sandy bank ; the smaller is C. succincta, L. Of late years no Heracleum has been discoverable in Bentley Woods ; in fact, I remember none since 1893-4 when several of the last Chrysis were taken by me uponits flowers at the present spot (i.e. the ' Ipswich ' of E M M . 1896, 122): so does the presence of Plants influence that of Insects ! Several

120

OBSERVATIONS.

C. cyanea, L., were noted at dead timber in Brandeston Wood during June ; and Dr. Hocken took a 2 that flew into his car at Wenhaston bridge over the River Blyth on 31 May. C. ignita showed less than its normal frequency from 15 May to only 21 July at Halesworth, Wissett, Brandeston, &c ; on 31 May a 5 of the Var. Electra, Shuck., was chasing a 5 Bee, Ccelioxys rufescens, Lep., to its burrow in the road-bank close to Blythburgh workho.use : its varied recorded hosts here and abroad include no Coelioxys spp.

The above new Hedychrum brings Suffolk's total to 20 out of the 25 species known to be British.—CLAUDE M O R L E Y .

C A U S E OF W A S P S ' SCARCITY.—This year we seem to have hardly any Wasps at Newbourne, in spite of the fact ihat ihere are any amount of Plums and Apples : we have had very few Vespce tor the last two or three years. I have put this down to hard winters, but this explanation does not hold good this year. Can vou throw any light on the matter ? I believe the same dearth of Wasps applies also in this whole district: it is true of at least Falkenham and Glemham Magna. We have, however, some Hornels, Vespa Crabro, L., and I know of two nests. L E S L I E D O W , 5 Sept.— What has happened to the Wasps this autumn ? Queens were busy as usual here this spring, but I have seen no worker for several weeks. At first I thought it a merely local dearth, but correspondents who . include Mr. Philip Harwood at Aviemore, Scotland all concur. E. R I V E N H A L L G O F F E , Kings Somborne, Hants ; 9 Sept. [There seem to be three main causes : (1) The most usual one for all Insecls' sparcity, so noticeable among Moths this last spring, i.e. that during open and frostless winters a high proportion of them are destroyed by the prevalence of Mildew and other fungoid growths to which the Insects' torpidity offers no resistence. (2) That given by Kirby in his Letter xviii of the ever-modern ' Introd. to Entom.' : " It sometimes happens that, when a large number of female Wasps have been observed in the spring and an abundance of workers in consequence expected in summer, but few of the latter have appeared. This is supposed to be caused by a failure of males ; I have more than once made the same Observation, Major Moor and I noticed it in 1815 as a consequence of the wet and almost wintery summer." (3) The most obvious and doubtless frequentest cause is expressed by Edward Connold, in a printed lecture before the Hastings NHist.

Soc. 1894 : " The weather of the British spring is variable and, if female (which alone survive from the previous year) Wasps be caught in a heavy shower or receive a chill from sudden lowering of temperature while nest-founding and are unable to regain shelter, their end is death. Even, when they have survived these early perils, rains, that are so frequent here in April and May, very seriously hinder building Operations." Vespa vulgaris, L., was in average numbers in High Suffolk throughout 1943.—Ed.].

OBSERVATIONS.

121

ICHNEUMONS STING.—For many years past I have received f r o m time to time specimens of the genus Ophion f r o m various correspondents who enquire what the Insects are, and complaining of having been stung by them. Recently an instance of considerable interest reached me, for here the effects are stated to have caused ijlness of some weeks' duration, having obviously affected the blood in a serious m a n n e r : the writer would be greatly obliged for any information about the enclosed Insect, &c. As all the species of this genus are confusingly alike, I sent this example t o M r . Claude Morley who kindly identifies it for me as Ophion calcaratus, Morley, who first described it in his ' British Icheumons,' vol. v, p. 269 ; and teils m e that " all Ophions sting, b u t I never before heard of subjects being ' ill for some weeks.' I have invariably f o u n d the pain evanescent and accompanied by no swelling." O. calcaratus is regarded by him as an undoubtedlv u n c o m m o n form, closely allied to the a b u n d a n t O. luteus, or O. distans to which its large and slender build more closely allies i t ; and was brought forward on a pair captured by M r . W . H . T u c k at TostoCk in Suffolk during the middle of September 1898-9; other males appeared on street-lamps at Ipswich in October 1900, and both sexes r o u n d study lamps between 8.30 and 10 p.m. at M o n k s Soham with an earliest date of 17 August. I may add that, though I have handled n u m b e r s of these I c h n e u m o n s and p r o b ably in most cases O. luteus, I have never been stung by t h e m . — F. W . FROHAWK, Cavendish Road, Sutton, Surrey ; 7 July.

HYMENOPTEROUS NOTES OF 1 9 4 3 . — S o d e l e t e r i o u s d o e s t h e m i l d

winter seem to have been to all the Aculeates that not a half-dozen of this year's species are worth noting. Gorytes campestris, L., is a Fossor that I f i n d extending in Britain no f u r t h e r n o r t h than Lowestoft and Donats in Wales ; very few specimens have appeared in Suffolk, so I was glad to come across some n u m b e r s of <? 3 on 31 May, sucking stylopods of / E g o p o d i u m podagraria flowers on the edge of marshes in the Blythburgh workhouse gardens, and on 22 J u n e a $ in the swampy part of Knettishall Heath. Entomognathus brevis, Lind., seems equally scarce with us and unrecorded f r o m the well-worked Bentley Woods, where one was taken u p o n Heracleum flowers, with the locally novel Cerceris ornata, Shaff., on 25 July. T h e Bee Melecta luctuosa, Scp., was flying on 24 April in the same gravel pit at Brandeston as it f r e q u e n t e d when last seen on 3 M a y 1922 : with it were m a n y Anthophora retusa, L., u p o n which iL is inquiline. Eucera longicornis, L., recurred on 16 M a y at Bügle flower in the Bentley W o o d s marsh, where it has been vainly sought since last seen there in 1924. I will add that on 2 August 1941 I had the f o r t u n e to f i n d a 5 of the rare Stelis aterrima, Pz. (Trans, iii, 137), sitting on a flower of Centaurea nigra close beside a tarred road at Apsey Green in F r a m l i n g h a m : the sole specimen known in all H i g h S u f f o l k . — T h o u g h individual Ichneumonidae were less n u m e r o u s

122

OBSER VATI ONS.

than in normal years, there was a goodly show of uncommon species among them, and only the better kinds can be presented here. Coelichneumon comitator, L., appeared on Monks Soham window at 7 p.m. 1 July and C. microstictus, Gr., was sent from Tissington in Derby during June by Miss Watson ; Stenichneumon culpator, Sehr., in August and Melanichneumon saturatorius, L., in June, flew at Brandeston. Ichneumon gracilentus, Wsm., affected Heracleum flowers in Thelnetham Fen during July ; and Ctenidmeumon fossorius, Gr. (NEW to Suffolk), I was glad to find in some numbers on those of Angelica in Cretingham watery-wood on only 21 August, though worked pre et post. Amblyteles glaucatorius, F., is a good deal rarer in Britain than I antieipated in 1903, for since then I have seen it from only Eastbourne in July 1900 taken by Col. Nurse, Meopham in Kent in Aug. 1922 by Mr. Frisby, Abberthorpe in Yorks in Aug. 1925 by Dr. Fordham, and Tuddenham Fen in 1925 by Bernard Harwood ; a second Suffolk 5 occurred to me on Parsnip flower beside Barking Wood at sunless noon on 8 August last, but none on lOth. Phceogenes ischiomelinus, Gr., was on Heracleum flower in Bentley Woods on 25 July, P. stimulator found at E. Mailing in Kent on 4 May, and Diadromus collaris on Monks Soham windows in August. Microcryptus sericans, Gr. (NEW to Suffolk), appeared on Heracleum flower in a Brandeston cornfield on 3 July ; and at Monks Soham were taken Cremnod.es atricapillus, Fst., on window at dusk 31 July, Glyphicnemis Suffolciensis, Morl., irewzs, Gr., Acanthocryptus 4-spinosus, Gr., and A. Hopei, Morl., in July, with Cecidonomus inimicus, Gr., on 21 June. A 2 of the rare Nemopodius linearis, Gr., flew in to the same house on 26 June, and Cryptus tuberculatus, Gr., on 27 August. Single Ephialtes carbonarius, Chr., were noted on a Chedeston gate-post 28 May, and barked log in Brandeston Wood on both 4 June and 3 July ; Perithous mediator, F., at dead willow in Bentley Woods 25 July. Pimpla graminellce, Hlg., occurred in Blythbro Wood 15 July and P. ornata, Gr., on Monks Soham window 20 August, with Poiysphincta tuberosa, Gr. (NEW to Suffolk), on 16 August; a $ of P. variipes, Gr. (NEW to Suffolk), was in my fly-trap there on 4 June 1915.

Glypta trochanterata, Bdg., came to Angelica flower at Cretingham 31 July, and Collyria calcitrator, Gr., unusually numerous everywhere for a fĂźll month from 21 May. Bassus annulatus, Gr., and Promethus scutellaris, Bdg., in bog to north of Knettishall Heath in late June ; Labrossyta scotoptera, Gr., hitherto rare, was sitting in profusion on Heracleum flowers in Thelnetham Fen on 22 June and singly at Brandeston on 16th. Mesoleius aulicns and M. niger, Gr., in Blythbro Wood July ; Mesoleptus cingulatus, Gr., with M. typhee, Frc., on Deben reeds at Brandeston, where on 24 July was Euryproctus geniculosus, Gr. Polyblastus pratensis, Gr., was on Angelica at Cretingham 16 August and Adelognathus Ruthii, Hlg., on Monks Soham window 26 June. Megastylus

OBSERVATIONS.

123

cruentator, Schd. (Morl. IB. v, 17), var 2 (Schmied. O L 1911, 2254) 2 , appeared on same windows at 6 p.m. 18 June : Mr. Lance Carr sent me a $ to name, taken at Lichfield 1919, that possessed the alar arelot entire ! ; and on a corridor window here on 7 Nov. 1942, I took a $ of Eusternix obscurella, Forst. (NEW to' Suffolk), doubtless about to hibernate. Thersilochns saltator, F., were in cop. on Heracleum flower at Monks Soham 29 July.

Campoplex foveolatus, Fst., Hurtwood Common in Surrey 24 May (Bedwell) ; C. rugulosus, Fst. (NEW to Suffolk), bred on 20 May from Selenia ' 4-lunaria, Hfn., I think,' at Lowestoft and Phobocampa obscurella, Hlg., bred from its own cocoon, beaten in Blythboro Wood 1942 and emerged 20 March 1943 (Btn).

Erigorgus melanobatus, Gr. (NEW to Suffolk), on Angelica at Brandeston, 1 Sept. ; Anomalon cerinops, Gr., Monks Soham lanes 8 July, and Agrypon anxium, Wsm., at Maple flower in paddock there 14 May. Ophion calcaratus, Morl., at Bentley Woods 25 July, and O. minutus, Kr., on oak 16 M a y ; Pansicus tarsatus, Krsch., in S. Elmham All SS. churchyard 27 May, and P. melanurus, Th., at Bentley Woods 7 June.—The BRACONIDAE were a poor lot, whereof I need mention only Microplitis mediana, Rth., a half-dozen of which were bred from their own dull and dirty-white sub-cylindrical cocoons of just 5 mm. length out of a larva of Monima miniosa, F., at Lowestoft in May (cp. Entom.

1936, 187) ; and Macrocentrus marginator, Ns., on 20 April and in May from pupae of both /Egeria vespiformis, L., at north Holton and JE. tipuliformis, Cl., at Walpole, all by Mr. Jim Burton.—Nor have the CYNIPIDAE been much better : Dryophanta folii, L., from oak at Bramfield on 15 April ; Sarothrus areolatus, Htg., abundant on Heracleum flowers during 20-31 J u l y ; and females of Eucoela eiliaris, Ztt., common on the same flowers here in e a r l y A u g u s t . — C L A U D E

MORLEY.

NEW SUFFOLK BRACONID.—The only Braconid that I happened to capture this year was taken on flowers in the little village of Badley near Stowmarket in Suffolk on 26 June.—GEOFFREY BURTON. [It is a fully 7 mm. female of Aspidogonus diversicornis, Wesm. Nouv. Mem. Acad. Brüx, ix, 1835, p. 186, a species ihat has been bred from an unnamed Longicorn Beetle, &c. in Germany and was considered new to Britain ( E M M . 1923, p. 278) on the strength of a single $ that occurred in the burrow of our common Longicorn Clytus arietis in an old Elm post at Chesterton in Cambs. However, our friend the Revd. T . A. Marshall of Ajaccio had (Spp. Hym. Europ. 1891, p. 252) an unlocalised female from Mr Francis Walker's collection which, in view of our later knowledge, was pretty surely captured near London about 1840, making three known indigenous speeimens in a Century. Add at Trans, iii, p. 232.—Ed.]

124

OBSERVATIONS.

CHALCID N E W TO B R I T A I N . — S o many of the 1 4 2 5 British species of Chalcid Flies were unrecognisably described by Francis Walker and so many of his type-specimens are irretrievably destroyed or lost that the entire study of this great family is stultified and no progress in it made for a füll half Century (my 1910 synonymic Catalogue of it, published by the British Museum, was a mere literary compilation). But of it a few small groups are distinguishable, whose characters are so conspicuous as to be unmistakable ; and, of these the Eupelminae, that has but ten indigenous kinds, is one. Hence, upon discovering an obvious Eupelmine with the remarkable feature of a white-banded ovipositor this year, I was moved to look it up. It plainly pertains to Eupelmus annulatus, Nees, whose Latin diagnosis is :—" Purpurascent-coppery, with the [variably deplanate, sometimes even concave meso-] thorax copper-lined ; front and hind femora apically, their tibiae at base and apex, and whole of tarsi and intermediate legs, testaceous ; terebra half length of abdomen, and infuscate with a central white band ; wings entire. Length 2-4 mm. Two $ $ bred at Sickershausen in Germany from pupa of the unBritish Beetle Cryptocephalus 5-punctatus, Harrer " (Mon. lehn. Affin, ii, 1834, p. 75, ? ).—Then I sought other examples among the thousand unnamed Chalcids in my collection and picked out a dozen speeimens that were collected thus :—• Two found on old posts at Brandeston 9 May 1923 ; one on Elmtrunk at Ashfield-Thorp 20 May 1924 ; on dead tree-trunk at Judes Ferry in Mildenhall 29 May 1924 ; sitting on a young Aspentrunk Blythburgh Wood 29 May 1943 ; swept at Barton Mills (NEW to Britain) 7 July 1920 ; investigating Beetle-borings in an old post at Big Hill in Monks Soham at 9.30 a.m. 8 July 1921 ; on Monks Soham window at 5 p.m. 9 July 1924 ; and the only ones seen outside Suffolk are two or three on an old gate-post at South Walsham in the Norfolk broads on 8 June 1931. Considering the high proportion taken at dead timber, especially old and doubtless usually oak gate-posts, I suspect its main British host of being the teredilian Beetle Ptinus germanus, Fab. My speeimens vary 2-3J mm. and the sexes are equally represented ; the 3 , unknown to Nees, averages larger and differs from $ only in having the antennae slightly longer and distinctly less fusiform, with apex of terminal joint acuminate.

N E W SUFFOLK C H A L C I D . — O n e of the very few easily recognizable genera of the parasitic Chalcid Flies, all of which are beautifully metallic, is Perilampus that was erected by Latreille in 18Ö9, for in no other group is its thorax nearly so deeply pitted.

Perilampus is known to be multiparously hyperparasitic, through the Tachinid (Diptera) genus Varichceta, on the Lepidopterous genus Hypantria, Harr., in North America (US. Bur. Entom.

1912, Bull, xix, pt. iv).

OBSERVATICNS.

125

As long ago as 1833 Mr. Francis Walker described six species as British in the Entomological Magazine, which may be thus distinguished :— (S) (3) (2) (5) (4) (7) (6) (1) (10) (9)

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Broader ; a b d o m e n broad-ovate.

A n t e n n a e red, with only base black 1. paVidipes, C u r t .

A n t e n n a e entirely dark t h r o u g h o u t .

G o l d e n , with a b d o m e n b r i g h t blue 2. nigricornis, Will;.

C o p p e r y or greenish : a b d o m e n not, or verv dark, blue.

K n e e s not red ; a b d o m e n very dark 3. ItaLicus, Fab. K n e e s distinctly red ; a b d o m e n golden 4. aureiviridis, Walk.

N a r r o w e r ; a b d o m e n lanceolate-ovate.

G o l d e n - b l a c k ; femora-tips red 5. aureiieps, Walk.

G o l d e n - g r e e n ; femora all dark 6. femoralis, Walk.

The third kind, Perilampus Italicus, was originally described from Genoa in Italy and iater from Sweden, Germanv and France, wl.ere de Gaulle says it is parasitic on the pestilential Black-jack Sawf'y, Athalia spinarum, F. Walker found it on oak, box and lime near London in July before 1833 ; Dale one on Whitedown at Glanvilles Wootton in Dorset on 9 Aug. 1870 ; Chitty gave me one from near Faversham in Kent during 1899 ; Charbonnier one from Redland in Glos, near Bristol in Aug. 1902 ; I captured one at (Enanthe flower on Shapwick peat-moor in Somerset on 13 July 1933 ; two at Angelica flower and on a Persicaria leaf ar Matley Bog in Hants at 3 p.m. on 12 Aug. 1927 ; and was so fortunate as to detect another on flowers of Angelica at noon on 14 Sept. 1943 in the Brandeston marshes of Suffolk. Thomson describes it as of a splendid blue, with the mesonotum golden and very coarsely punctate, abdomen and legs blue-black, and the tarsi, except at tip, yellow ; length 4 mm. Probably the loveliest of all our Chalcididae : a true gemmeous jewel from Titania's tiara.—CLAUDE MORLEY. FISH AT THORP MORIEUX.—I had an excellent day's fishing in the park here a fortnight ago. My brother-in-law and I landed in the course of eight hours eighty-two pounds of Rudd, averaging 1 \-2 lbs. apiece ; and I hooked a three-pound Tench (Tinea vulgaris, Cuv.) in the afternoon : I have never had so enjoyable a time with Scardinius erythrophthalmus, L., when every bite produced a goodly-sized fish. Also we landed two Pike (Esox lucius, L.) of 2\ and three pounds respectively.—C. S. LAST.

FISH NEW TO SUFFOLK.—When perusing a copy of ' T h e

Natural History of British Fishes with Accurately finished Coloured Plates purposely made from the Specimens in a Recent State and for the most part Whilst Living ' by Edward Donovan, 1804, I came across a MS. note :—" Two specimens of Centriscus scolopax, Linn., or Trumpet Fish, were caught in trawl-nets off Southwold in the summer of 1885 & 1886." The book belonged to Mrs. Peek, a relative of my husband and sister of William Swainson, F.R.S., F.L.S. ; she used to live at Blackshore in Southwold and was a capital Naturalist with a remarkable störe

126

OBSERVATIONS.

of knowledge : everyone took curious specimens to her for identification. I have access to her brother's book on ' Zoological Illu-trations ' of 1820-1. Would a short account of her activities be interesting for our Trans. ? I possess many particulars, and faintly remember her as my Uncle used to bury her numerous Cats, as they successively died !—IDA S. CRITTEN. [Only three indigenous examples were known up to 1841 (Yarrell, i, 347 ; cf.

Jenkins 1925, p. 126): add to Suifolk at Trans. S N S . ii, 113, no. 53a. Mrs. Peek's local associations would be valuable.—Ed.] N E W LIZARD LOCALITIES.—Lacerta vivipara, Wagl., abounds near the old Chapel at Mells in Wenhaston, on the banks of the lower road just above marshes. Here on 3 May last they were sunning themselves in large numbers (DR. HOCKEN). Two or three specimens were noted among the dead leaves inside Bentley Woods on both 16 May & 7 june this year ; another was sunning itself upon a log at Blythburgh Heath on 30 August, when a large Grass Snake was encountered in the marshes there.—(P. J . BURTON). ' T H E UNKNOWN B I R D ' (p. 68) NAMED.—The suggested Wheatear turns out to be Corn Bunting [Emberizu calandra, L.]. I heard their call from a telegraph-wire and, as several were eating crumbs I had put out and came within three yards of me, I could make no mistake : though I used to confuse them with Sparrows !

M y sister at Melton has several Wrynecks ; she says she caught a young one in a strawberry-net, and that they seem on the increase ; we never see them here.—MRS. BLANCHE GRAVES, Dovercourt; 20 June.

B I R D S ' FOOD.—I shall be very grateful if you will name the enclosed Beetle and the other Insect, botb from a Crow's pellet.

They came from the edge of a reservoir in Worcestershire. [The former is the Ground-beetle Agonum marginatum, L . ; but the '.atter object is obscure, and bears rather the aspect of bark than anything entomological. If it pertain to an Insect, it can be only the elytra of the Beetle Melolontha vulgaris, Fab. (common Cockchafer, now on the wing) or the rare Longicorn Tetropium Gabrieli, Weise, but the flatness and thickness are both abnormal, just possibly caused by modification in the Bird's stomach.] Also, will you look at this Dipper's pellet and let me know something about its Contents ? I have not broken it, as we do not find Dipper's pellets daily ! [Though semi-digested, the oval pellet is obviously of homogeneous structure all through, consisting of Water-boatmen debris, probably those of the large Corixa Geoffroyi, Lch.] T h e Bird was seen to evacuate it while sitting on a rock at Stow-on-the-Wold, and it was retrieved from the water.

— A L I C E H I B B E R T - W A R E , Hilary, Girton, Gambridge ; 9 May 1943. [On 30th Miss Hibbert-Ware writes that she finds the supposititious elytra to be certainly composed of wood-tissue.—Ed.]

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F O O D OF Totanus calidris, L I N N . — I am asking your help in identifying the two enclosed pellets of Redshank that were f o u n d at Breydon W a t e r and sent to me by M r . J. F. T h o m a s of Langharne in Caermarthonshire. T h e contained insect that chiefly puzzles m e has straw-yellow and black-striped elytra of very soft consistency. I cannot piece it with any of the other fragments, so that I am uncertain whether it is Coleopterous or Hemipterousor ?

T h e r e are a moderate n u m b e r of tiny Mollusca in these pellets though, I think, it would be impossible to identify t h e m [but cf. T r a n s , iv, p. 23]. I shall be grateful for any information you can give me as to the contents.—ALICE HIBBERT-WARE, Hilary, Girton, Cambridge ; 10 Jan. 1943. [ T h e Water-beetle Calambns paralleligrammus, Ahr., is rare in Suffolk fresh-water at Bixley Decoy, &c, b u t r o u n d Breydon it a b o u n d s in brackish ditches, frequently in those whose salinity is as high as 9.1 promille (cf.

Trans, iii, p. xxxix), f r o m S o u t h t o w n to the Halvergate marshes of the Waveney Valley. All vhe above black-striped elytra pertained to this species certainly, and the great majority of the other comminuted debris probably ; for the rest nothing was suificiently entire to determine, beyond a few wings of the W a t e r - b o a t m a n , Corixa sp. ; nor could we discover any Mollusca, t h o u g h one specimen of the Crustacean Ostracoda, pretty surely Candona Candida, Müll., was conspicuous. Cp. T r a n s , iv, 141 & 285.—Ed.] L I T T L E O W L ' S FOOD.—While motoring along a road in Walpole on 14 June, D r . Hocken and I saw a Bird rise f r o m the grass verge ahead and, u p o n overtaking it, f o u n d it to be a Little Owl [Athene noctua, Scop.] carrying off an enormous Frog, which seems so unusual a food as to be worth putting u p o n record.—P. J. B U R T O N . ; 15 June. [Unusual, b u t well known to be among the delicacies affected by this polyphagous Bird.—Ed.] S O U N D C O N T E S T S . — T o observe is permissible, even amidst the most serious occasions. D ü r i n g the height of the night air-raid over Ipswich on 13 May, with guns firing, b o m b s d r o p p i n g and all the hurly of bloody war, the Nightingales have never been so noisy t h o u g h everywhere n u m e r o u s this year. [Just the same persistency, more especially in the beams of brilliant search-lights, was noted among these birds that night at Kenton rectory-garden.

—Ed.] Authorities have asserted that Birds sing in rivalry : if these tried to outdo the blasting heavens, they cannot distinguish sounds, but it is apparent they were quite u n f r i g h t e n e d by such noises as mere M a n m a y make in rivalry. I saw a pair of W a g tails on my lawn on 4th and Cuckoos were noisy on 14 April.—A. HAROLD SADD, Westerfield ; 1 6 M a y 1943.

I have nothing m u c h of interest to report yet : Nightingale on 13th, Cuckoo 19th, Swallows 21st (but where are the M a r t i n s ?), Turtle-dove 28th April. Blackcap, Whitethroat, Willow-warbler, &c, all about their usual dates. T h e Greater-spotted Woodpeckers

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are in my garden and I hope they may be nesting ; I have never seen them here in the flesh until last year, when I was prescnted with a dead specimen.—(Canon) A. P. W A L L E R , Waldringfield.

DEFENSIVE

MAGPIE ;

AND

A

DEATH-WATCH.—Thanks

for

Transactions which does not appear to have suffered any war-time contraction. Enclosed is a Beetle from an old cottage here, where members of its species abound to such an extent that they keep the inmates awake o'nights ; and, as a death has recently occurred, the effect is rather nerve^racking. [It is the Larger Death-watch, Xestobium tessellatum, Fab., so destructive to old house- and especially church-beams; sometimes found wild in Suffolk Willow-wood.—Ed.] It was interesting this morning to see Rooks making repeated efforts to force their way into an unguarded Magpies' nest that, I suppose, contained eggs. The thorny dorne, however, seemed too much for them ; though I rather hoped the Magpies would get a doze of the medicine they so lavishly mete out to other Birds. And, the next day, rejoiced to find no more than a small foundation of the nest remaining : I assumed the Rooks had removed the whole piecemeal!—J. N O E L R I . Y T H , Walton-on-Naze; 23 April.

Phcenicurus Tithys, S C O P . , N E S T I N G AT LOWESTOFT.—The three male Black Redstarts of 1942 (Trans, v, 67 ; cf. iv, 140) are fairly certainly the individual Birds of three pairs that frequented Lowestoft, with an unmated male, throughout the summer of 1943 ; nesting occurred in the exact, widely separated parts of the town frequented in 1942. In each case two broods were reared, totalling at least twenty young. Pair No. 1 first built on a cart-shed beam in a disused boat-store, whence five young were reared ; secondly within a few yards of first site, I think inside the bedroom of an empty house. For several weeks pair No. 2 frequented a large derelict stable, disappearing after 27 April. Not tili 19 May was their nest discovered, in an adjacent old fish box nailed to a post inside an open-fronted boatowner's störe, containing only two young and an addled egg. About mid-July the same pair were feeding two fiedglings of their second brood ,whose nest was not found, about the same buildings.

Pair No. 3, of which the male was only a trifle greyer than the female and had not assumed füll summer dress, were found 1 May about an empty factory. Their nest surmounted a brick buttress, some twenty-five feet from ground, the young were already hatched and the parents passing in and out with food through the broken glass-roof; four young were brought off.

Atop another buttress at opposite end of same factory five young resulted, a few weeks later, from a second nest; a few days after their flight, the whole family was being fed by both parents.

Near No. 2's nest the unmated male, in first year plumage, sang almost continually during his stay ; usually on a tall fiag-pole

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129

in the playground of a school totally razed by a bomb in May, after which he still sang among the ruins.—Last year's Osprey (Trans, v, 6 8 P a n d i o n halicetus, L.) was later found to have been leg-ringed as a nestling on 30 July 1942 at Lake Ruskin, Nydala, Province of Smaland in Sweden ; and a Black-headed Gull, found dead by me beside Oulton Broad on 29 July, 1943, had been ringed when young at Haderslav, South Jutland in Denmark on 7 July, 1941.—The notable feature of this autumn's migration here is extraordinary numbers of small Birds between 10-13 Sept. ; this great rush and subsequent hold-up was caused by east winds and exceptionally high temperature with fog : mainly Pied Flycatchers and Redstarts with fair numbers of Whinchats, Wheatears, Whitethroats, Willow-wrens, and one or two Blue-throated Warbiers.

— F . C . COOK ; 6 November.

O T H E R B I R D NOTES.—Quite recently I have enjoyed the experience of two bird-thrills : First when a Wryneck came and sat on a tree just in front of the kitchen window here, and made its peculiarly discontented noises. And yesterday when a pair of charming Goldfinches flew, with one Greenfinch, on to the gardenpath close to the house to pick up cress-seed, which I had dropped, all with the seed-vessels on it. They were the first Goldfinches we have seen here. Two Nightingales have been singing in the garden at the same time.—MRS. L I N G W O O D , Bosmere House,, Martlesham ; 30 April.

We have added Meadow Pipits to our local bird-list. Jays are becoming quite common here, and so are Shelduck.

Our Nightingales have been less vocal than last year, but this is a spring much more ' worth singing about.' I am enjoying the 1943 Transactions : Wrhat an excellent account Mr. Cook gives of last year's Lowestoft Birds.—H. R . L I N G W O O D , Martlesham.

My son reports that two House-martins were seen by him near Strathpeffer in Scotland on 17 April last. I regret to teil you that our Member, A. C. Wratislaw, died shortly before 1939.— G E O F F R E Y M. F R E N C H , Felixstow ; 2 8 May. S T O N E C U R L E W NEAR W O O D B R I D G E . — I saw a specimen of Burhinus CEdicnemis [scolopax, Gm.] Standing in a ploughed field, close to a road, in Newbourne about 6.30 p.m. on 14 May this year. T h e Bird flew off at my approach : the large eye was unmistakable. I have not got Ticehurst by me at the moment, and think this species confined in Suffolk to the NW. All good wishes to the Society.—LESLIE DOW, Newbourne; 28 June. [ Though certainly most frequent in the NW., it " breeds on everv heath between Southwold & the Orwell, nowhere abundantly (Hist. Birds Suff. 1932, 329).—Ed.]

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OBSERVATIONS.

SOME BIRDS OF 1943.—This has been an abnormal year in the Bird world, on account of both the war conditions and peculiarly early season. I had little time to devote to it seriouslv, b u t f o u n d occasional leisure f r o m usual routine to look round me, when most of m y activities were centred upon Woolpit where I have lived since April last. Unfortunately I forgot in 1942 that the Society was still issuing Observations upon the subject. Migrants were very few this season ; their numbers being restricted, I assume, by extensive cultivation of marsh and heathland, by felling of timber for aerodrome sites, and the havoc to waste land caused by military tank-exercises. I think I have seen more Magpies this year than ever before ; f r o m the many reports received, it is n o w become a common Bird throughout the entire C o u n t y : due, no doubt, to shortage of civil cartridges. One August evening I observed a flock of about twenty Linnets chasing a Sparrow-haick : they all maintained their respective distances f r o m it tili out of sight by the naked eye. Crossbills have been in only moderate n u m b e r s , consequent upon the mild winter ; nests were completed in early January, a good deal before their usual time. I watched a pair of N u t h a t c h s feeding young about thirty feet u p an Elm in a main street of Castle H e d i n g h a m in Essex ; an adjacent E l m housed a family of Spotted Flycatchers. Red-backed Shrikes have been unusually scarce, and I have seen b u t two pairs though I visited a dozen haunts where they have nested through many years.

M i l d winter caused early general nesting : I saw Tree Creepers paired off in M a r c h ; Blackbirds and Thrushes finished nestbuilding before the end of February. Earliest Cuckoo were heard in west Suffolk on 18 April, and they left the County a good deal before their usual departure date. Wheatears were particularly sparse everywhere, on account of their habitats' extensive cultivation. At its nesting-hole was seen a Great-spotted Woodpecker, amid evidences of its youngs' presence. A couple of Kingfishers were flying all day u p and down the lake in T h o r p Morieux Park in early Septemher. While Walking t h r o u g h an oak forest, I flushed a single Woodcock.

M r . Vulliamy teils me two pairs of Oystercatchers were seen in t h e Shingle-street district of Hollesley, with considerably increasing Little Terns, and the usual n u m b e r s of Redshanks and Lapwings.

Düring a visit to the S a n d r i n g h a m district of Norfolk in June, I noticed a very large colony of Shelduck nesting on open heathland quite close to the Wash, some fifty pairs in all ; I was told they had nested there for the last score of years. M e a d o w Pipits were a b u n d a n t in the vicinity, and a Grasshopper Warbier was heard, though no trace of a nest could be discovered. Reed Warbiers were seen, and Sedge Warbiers very common, along the dykes.—CECIL S. LAST, Bracondale, Woolpit, near Bury ; 15 Sept.

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131

GREAT INCREASE OF OUR T E R N S . — I wrote Mr. Cecil Last a short account of a visit which I paid to my land at Shingle-street in Hollesley on 14 June last, telling him that, whereas not many years ago there was not a single Common Tern nesting there and in 1940 there were only a few nests, this year I found two Terneries, one with about forty-five occupied nests and the other with over a hundred and sixty. As you know, these Sterna hirundo, L., make an apology of a nest. I am greatly concerned to think that, when war is over, it will not be possible to prevent the wholesale robbery of their nests, seeing that the public have free access to my land and there is, of course, no question of a Bird-watcher. I am so glad to hear that we are able to bring out our Transactions this year : it would be a great pity if there were a break in their publication.—LIONEL H . VULLIAMY ; 8 Sept. [The suggestion that this fine Stretch of shingle should be a Bird Sanctuary has already been mooted (Trans, iv, p. xxxvii) and there is considerable ground for hope that it will be preserved by law.—Ed.] DEMOLISHED WASPS' NEST.—Vespa vulgaris was in about its normal numbers during 1942, and I had carefully located the site of one strong nest in a piece of waste ground in my Monks Soham garden. So, upon noting during the next winter the interesting Chrysididae bred from Wasps' nests by Fred Smith about 1850 (and apparently by no one in Britain later) near Wakefield, I determined to go and do likewise. On 21 April 1943 I removed the clayey soil all round the Wasps' superficial entrance-hole, that seemed larger than it had been last year, and laid open the nest's circular cavity, about six inches below the surface. But no trace of the nest's papyraceous material remained ! Instead the cavity was about one-third filled with dry and dead leaves, mostly of the adjacent Hawthorns, amid which were extracted four or five dead, fresh, and newly-born Field Mice, presumably Apodemus sylvaticus, L. Had their parents subsisted, during the lean days of winter upon the wood fibre mastigated by the Wasps into the fabric of the nest ? — C L A U D E MORLEY. SOUTHTOWN W H A L E B O N E S . — I n some rather extensive grounds at Southtown is a residence called Ferryside on the site of a once well known school, ' Wright's Academy.' During 1820 was published a series of etchings of this school and its grounds, one plate by W. Joy shows the Whalebone Recess which includes such a once-fashionable jawbone arch. What became of it is unknown ; but there is still an arch on an adjacent site, a few hundred yards to SW. behind Westbourne Lodge on the Beccles Road : this may be the same one, re-erected, and it is masked by Ivy though its shape remains visible from passing busses. Also, some Whale-bones existed in Sacrels Garden, just off the Southtown Road, but I know no account of them and do not remember them as being jaw-bones. T h e old Yarmouth Whale-skull chair

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was somewhat burnt when German planes destroyed St. Nicholas church, and had been thrown out among rubbish, but has been rescued by the parish clerk.—P. E. RUMBELOW ; 1 8 Nov. 1 9 4 2 .

SCOTS OBSERVATIONS.—I came up from Norley to Inverness on 1 July and find the scenery all round the Caledonian Canal, upon whose waters I am living, very lovely. M y greatest delight has been to ferry across a narrow strait to where I can roam along miles of wild and deserted coastline, forming part of the north shore of the Inner Moray Firth. I saw a few Grey Seals [Halicheerus gryphus, Fab : Trans, ii, 29] in the strait during July but not lately, as they have gone round to their rookeries on the Western Isles for the breeding season. But one day there was a streng run of Cod, and the whole Strait was alive with Porpoises [Phocaena communis, Cuv.] that were, not merely indulging in the usual surface-roll where the back fin and half-body only show but, throwing themselves bodily out of the water, often several at a time, and revelling in every kind of cetacean acrobatics : I could plainly see their spouts and the sound, when several were emitted at once, was like that of a starting railway-engine. It was the best sight of its kind I have experienced since my ship ran into the midst of a school of migrating Whales [Balaena mysticetus, L.] off the Portugese coast when I was returning from Palestine. Also I have had a view of a flock of Sandwich Terns [Sterna Sandvicensis, Lath.], new to me, along the same deserted shore. My first jaunt, on a beautifully sunny day in early July, took me to Loch Ness ; but I saw very little life of any sort there. One canal man assured me : " There is something there all right. Amateof mine, who is a diver, went down at a place in the Loch that ' the Monster ' [Trans, ii, 279] had been reported to frequent ; and he came up fairly scared stiff. He refused to teil us w.hat he had seen, but has been a changed man ever since " : which, if vaguely unscientific, is at least sufficiently impressive to whet curiosity.

My return bus would not halt, so I had to foot-slog the füll eleven miles back to my ship ! T h e summer has been mainly cold and rainy up here. Salaams to all our Members.—HENRY ANDREWS, 15 August.