40
THE BRITISH DISTRIBUTION OF PHYGADEUON
immaculate black scape, centrally clear-red abdomen and centrally testaceous hind tibiae ; its transverse thoracic areola and thin antennse are characteristic. I find Phygadeuon fumator, Grav., to differ from all its allies by combining :—Head buccate but not cubical, with (as in all this group) that of J less cubical than $ ; antennse black, or in $ basal joints at most apically red ; pronotum strongly punctate ; abdomen centrally red, excepting in above melanic form ; postpetiole basally deplanate, broader than high, not apically rimose ; terebra shorter than first s e g m e n t ; legs with all femora and tibise red, latter not inflated (I consider, though not constant, both sexes with hind tibias black at both extremities to be invariably this species); the entirely-red-legged form differs from P. brevitarsis in buccate head, hexagonal areola and black hind coxae ; nervellus emitted below centre. 6 Jan., 1946.
NEWS FOR NATURALISTS. W e a l t h — M a m m o n ' s glittering image—is our god,
not knowledge or wisdom. Rider Haggard. Düring the last few years (a M e m b e r writes to us) I have been staying a good deal in High Suffolk and was much impressed by the local folks' utter lack of all appreciation of the countryside's Beauty : the men hated Trees, the children saw nothing to admire in Flowers, and the women detested Birds because they ate currants ! I greatly fear my native County, as elsewhere in this Our England, and my old favourite haunts are rapidly becoming hardly recognisable now. T h e farmers seem to be growing more and more greedy and money-minded. In quite a short time I have witnessed the destruction of innumerable Woods, Hedges, Trees and beautiful old farm-buildings. Where thatch was wont to be used is now vile corrugated iron ; ugly wires and martian pylons everywhere traverse the landscape. What it will become ere long, I shudder to anticipate—when cinematographs and fried-chip shops appear in picturesque villages. It seems so sad to me that the Squires, who really did, with all their faults, preserve and tree-plant the countryside, should be now taxed out of existence and reduced to a par with any vulgär self-made creature of the machine class f r o m industrial towns. T h o u g h Suffolk used to be remote f r o m the big centres of industry, their influence for ill is much more evident and always increasing ; one must be thankful that their everlasting din is confined in rural districts to the devastating farm-tractor. All who are capable of preserving
NEWS FOR NATURAl.ISTS
41
our Beauty must be ever alert; and all with a soul to appreciate it sincerely long for that legal backing which must emerge if every good feeling be not dead. " Give me but eyes to know the joy that lies ^ In friendship with Trees, a meadow-land with Hees . . .
W e were glad to hear last January from Member Hynes, who had " been chasing Locusts for the past three years, and tedious work it is : my Wife and I are sick of i t ! But we have the satisfaction of knowing that ever since the outbreak of Desert Locusts began there has°been very little crop-damage, and that is worth an immense amount in war-time. We spent one year in Ethiopia, another in Kenya and now almost a third in Somalia, i.e. Italian Somaliland olim, where we live as the occupying power in a completely latinised colony ; with the result that we speak a babel of languages, all of them badly. I rejoice in the title of Technical Adviser to Locust Control, though most of my work is administrative, spending most of my life bouncing over bad desert roads in army transport and doing very little biology. I sometimes wonder if I did not dream there is such a place as England ! However, I want to get back to Fresh Water work and perhaps I shall come again [cf. Proc. iv, p. cvi] in pursuit of Nemoura dubitans " to Fritton Lake. One very serious piece of News for Naturalists this year is the proximity of the notorious Colorado Beetle, Leptinotarsa decemlineata, Say (Trans, v, p. lxxxvi), on every side of our County, though fortunately nowhere within it. At first one continued to smile at the newspaper reports (as at I.e. iv, 181), as the earliest speeimen, detected by the Harpenden laboratory on 4 June, had been avowedly imported. It came from Holland in a crate of Lactuca sativa, L., to Wolverhampton in Staffs ; and experts of the vaunted Ministry of Agriculture, after vainly examining every Lettuce of this crate, roundly affirmed no such Beetles to have been reported from any British farm. But the very next month a single speeimen actually was discovered both at Cheam in Surrey and, to the south of Suffolk, at Dagenham in Essex on Potatoes. Then, to the west of Suffolk, an unstated number of the perfect Beetles, confirmed on 3 August, turned up devouring the Potatoe crop at Horsemoor near March in Cambs : and the old Fen Sea has about the best soil for Solanum tuberosum, L., throughout England ; but the occurrence did not spread. T e n days later no less than two hundred of this terror's larvae, conceivably a single brood for no parasites of an American Beetle can be expected in Britain, were found eating a single Potatoe-patch that was being weeded by women, to the north of Suffolk at Watlington near L y n n in Norfolk; examples of these larvae are in Norwich Museum. Similar crops within a half-mile were effectively sprayed on 13 August with destroyer and the actual patch disaffected with carbon bisulphine. One ' s u s p e c t ' was a Beetle held by the Edmonton
42
NEWS FOR
NATURALISTS
police in north London on 22nd of that month : its identity seems to have been found innocuous, or our foul weather rendered it so, for nothing further emerged. War is not the only curse that aeroplanes bring to Britain, for the final L. 10-lineata alighted from one at Croydon and was reported on 19 September to have been captured while Walking over ' f r e i g h t ' flown from Nice.—It is much to be feared that the conveyance of Insects and other Animals by aeroplane will greatly upset exactitude of natural distribution, of which inexactitude another example occurred this year : a of the bronze Beetle Lagria villosa, first described by Fabricius from ' Cap. Bon. Spei', of which we possess many examples f r o m Natal that are widely distributed in Africa (cf. Blair, Ann. Mag. N H . 1920), was recently sent for identification by Member Stanley as British. Dr. Blair suggested importation by air, and hoped the capture could be remembered. But Mr. Stanley writes (in lit. 27 Sept.) " T o take my mind back to August 1942 is almost impossible because I have taken [in Senegal, be it noted, Ceylon, &c] some three thousand Insects since that date. It certainly came out of a match-box, together with other specimens, that I took when then staying with my sister at T h u r n b y in Leicestershire. There is an aerodrome about a quarter-mile from the bottom of her garden." It is distinctly curious that the celebrated Grasshopper of the Royal Exchange may well have had its original prototype in Suffolk. It was the family crest of the Greshams ; and that T u d o r merchantprince, Sir Richard Gresham, was granted the main Battisford Manor and the Commandry of Saint Johns Manor in Battisford, perhaps also Beccles main manor, by the crown in 1544-5. His son, Sir Thomas, 1519-79, patron of education and founder of Gresham College, London, in 1575, was agent of the British Crown in Antwerp, and erector of the first Royal Exchange, Cambium regis, at the Bank corner, that was opened by Queen Bess on 23 January 1571. T h e sign of the Grasshopper, doubtless taken from Arnos vii, 1, surmounted his Lombard-street house at the time he held our manors here and can be definitely identified as the ubiquitous Stenobothrus bicolor, common on Grasses throughout England. This is almost the earliest historic Insect, though Suffolk Grampuses are recorded in the same reign (Wooderspoon, 219) and Porpoises in 1543 (Bacon's Annal, 222). Such large things are much easier to recognise, and we get the Birds Cock, Crane, Crow, Cuckoo (AS. speight), Goose, Hawk and Raven, along with the honey of Bees in Honnington, among our local village-names ; as well as the Plants Ash, Bean, Elm, Oak ; and a dozen Mammals Badger i.e. Brock, Buck and Hart, Bull, Fox, Ged i.e. Goat, Hasfer i.e. he-Goat, Hare, Horse definitely stated to be ridden here in A.D. 865, Ram, Ship i.e. Sheep, Swine, Wither i.e. young Ram and Wolf, all of which parishes may be supposed named by c. A.D. 700. One Insect, previous to the Grasshopper, is the Peacock
NF.WS FOR NATURALISTÂť
43
Butterfly, Vanessa Io, Britain's sole kind with the circular central spot on all four wings, clearly displayed in two examples that are carved (Home Words, July 1946) on a bench-end of circa 1380 still in Othery church in the middle of Sedgemoor : quite probably they were copied from two specimens of Io hibernating, as is their wont, in this place near five hundred years ago. T h e fundamental matter of forest-felling in Suffolk is one upon which our Society must keep a careful eye. If carried to too great an extent—and present taxation seems to recognise no just hmit —the entine sylvan flora and fauna of our County must become seriously diminished. A decade ago we recorded species, hitherto unknown here, from Monks-park Wood in Bradfield St. George near Lavenham : late last June we again paid it a visit and were horrified to find the whole interior clean swept to the ground, made a solitude that is not peace because unnatural. No essentially Forest animal was met in the course of two hours. Wangford Wood near Blythburgh, too, was felled during the winter of 1945-6 but not so drastically ; here all the Birches and most bushes remain, along with the skirting Oaks, of which some are quite good with a girth of fifteen feet five inches at five feet from ground. Even better Oaks are threatened in Redgrave Park near our north border, which Hall is destined to pass from (our relations) the Maitland Wilsons and become a hospital. On the other hand, about Frostenden nothing has been touched through the six war-years, and growth is evident on all sides about both the marshes and uplands : the numerous willows adj acent to the Domesday 'Portus maris ' are badly stag-headed, unexpectedly so in an ultra-humid season : probably some sea-water has reached their roots. Members are entirely en rapport with Dr. E. B. Ford's protest: " Since the beginning of the nineteenth Century, the English countryside has steadily become less favourable for [among other Animals] our butterflies. Fens have been drained, waste land reclaimed, urbanisation and industrialism have made vast and hideous advances ; throughout this period there has been also a steady destruction of timber which, since 1914, has reached alarming proportions. Woodlands were devastated in the last war and never replanted, while the country has been subject to a disastrous forestry policy, bv which our splendid deciduous trees are being replaced by [shoddy] conifers. T h e great estates, so important to rural communities and to the preservation cf wild life, are collapsing under insupportable taxation ; and the country will ultimately be infinitely the poorer for their loss. T h e extent to which our fauna and flora have gained, through the estabhshment of nature reserves and of that admirable institution the National Trust, has been [more than] negligible in comparison with such [damnable] evils " ( T h e New Naturalist Butterflies 1945, 138).
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NEWS FOR NATURALISTS
A specimen of the south Indian Butterfly, Papilio Hector, L., was taken in a Forest Gate garden near London, on 25 July last. ' It may have been liberated with others as a friend teils me he saw one, which came into a cottage window at Capel St. Mary, eight miles west of Ipswich, on 28 July. But this, I think was possibly only a Red Underwing which might not appear dissimilar to the lay eye.' (Entom. 1946, 268). Certainly a very vague record ; yet one cannot accuse even the lay mind of confusing a tropica! Butterfly with Catocala nupta, for which the date is extremely early in the year : see Trans, v, 221. A general meeting of the Mildenhall Field Naturalists' Society was held recently, when the following officers were elected : Chairman, Dr. C. T . E. Parsons ; hon. secretary, Mr. A. Grantham ; hon. treasurer, Mr. A. E. Webb ; Committee, Mrs. H. Southwell, Mrs. M. Hall, Messrs. E. Turner, F. Jackson, David Bell and J. Leach. The Society has extended its" scope to include the study of archseology and is open to receive more members, including especially juniors. The subscription for ordinary members is 2s. 6d. per annum, but children attending a day school will be admitted to membership free of subscription, the principal aims and objects of the Society are :—To encourage and protect Wild Life in the area ; to promote ihe interests of Nature-study in all its branches ; to hold Meetings periodically for discussion among Members ; to arrange Lectures and Outings to various places of interest to Nature-lovers ; to form gradually a reference Library for the use of Members for identification purposes ; to bring Nature-lovers of the district into helpful communication one with another. (Local Paper, 11 April 1946). Here was news, indeed, for none of our Members had so much as heard of so congenial a confrere. We wrote to the Chairman accordingly, warmly welcoming his Association as a valued ally in the Nature Field. He kindly replied on 22 April : " Dear Mr. Morley. Thank you for your letter and the invitation to your Society's Meeting at Bury on 1 May, which I regret to say I shall be unable to attend. We formed our Society in Mildenhall before the war to foster interest, in both young and old, in the Natural Sciences. One object is to keep records of this area, which is altering because of the planting by the Forestry Commission, which is taking over large areas of Breck-land. My own interest is Bird-life ; and we certainly have abundant material here for Ornithology. Several species, which were rare, are now becoming quite common : for instance, we get any number of Grasshopper Warbiers now. There are several members interested in the flints, etc. If, at any time, we could help your Society, we should be very pleased to do so. We have not published anything ; but our records of bird life and botany in this area are fairly complete. Yours truly, C. T. E. Parsons." Too many such local coteries are impossible.—About that of which we are being robbed, with too small protest, Mr. E. Hewett, in 1921 well wrote in simple language :—
BRECKLAND
BRECKLAND. Where the brown Heathland stretches wide For mile on mile, untilled and bare, With nought the traveller to guide, Since roads are few and signposts rare : There, mile on mile, the Bracken grows Green, spreading far as eye can see, And, 'gainst the sky the Pine-tree shows Dark in its sombre majesty. Wild in those high, unbending boughs The harsh, rude gales of Winter play ; Through them the warm wind sighs and sou; All the long, lonely Summer's day. There, faintly Seen, the Heather rolls In distance dim, a far blue sea, Or decks the nearer wastes and knolls With Nature's witching artistry. The Lesser Ouse, its course unseen, In V a l l e y deep through Breckland flows By fens with waving Rushes green, Where bent with years the Alder grows. And, there, from many a far-off land, Come migrant Birds in early Spring Amongst its Sedges, meres and sand To build or wade or pipe or sing. Not half its varied charms are told : How pure its keen, pine-scented air : How bright its flow'ring Gorse with gold : Its Autumn tints how rieh and rare. Breckland ! where Norfolk's earliest men Found Flint and food and rude employ> Your call is potent, now as then— The Call to Freedom and to Joy !