Observations 6 Part 2

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O B S E R V A T I O N S> T h e criterion of a great m i n d is its ability t o grasp the entirety of any given subject, and to view it u p o n all sides. T h e mass of mischief, cansed by people dwelling u p o n isolated points, is e n o r m o u s ; and the occupation of one half of o u r thinkers consists of exposing the fallacies of the other half —Henry Tibbats Stainton, 1856.

WIDE DISTRIBUTION OF Carboniferous Shale.—A specimen, found in Field OS. 101 at Glemham Magna, a wet and low meadow, lying in the Valley of the River Aide, was identified by the British Museum on 13 June as " a Carboniferous Shale, of which the Plant-fragments are indeterminable though a microscopical examination might reveal spores which would give clue to its age.

This it is impossible to judge from the local stratigraphy, for the Geological Survey Memoir of that area shows Glacial Drift deposits to be widespread, and the solid rocks revealed by borings are referred to London Clay or Reading Beds. That this specimen' came from either of these is very doiibtful, but it might well have been brought to Glemham by Drift ". I have found very similar Shale in Meadow OS. 103 only a few hundred yards further down the stream, which I think to be Kimmeridge Coal as it burnt fairly readily. Also, about a mile away in OS. 21 Stratford St. Andrew, there is an obviously largish deposit of Kimmeridgean fossiliferous Clay that has been expoaed by a bomb. I have no doubt these Glacial-borne Shales are lying numerously all over the County ; and it is especially interesting to have discovered so many in such a small a r e a . — ( T H E EARL OF) CRANBROOK ; 2 3 June.

FUNGUS N E W TO SUFFOLK.—I possess many additions to the Victoria History list of the larger Suffolk Fungi, but must defer their publication tili enough courage is forthcoming to tackle their correct revision. Meanwhile Mr. Simpson has sent me from the edge of Shrubland Park last May Morchella conica, Pers., hitherto unrecorded hence, though I find an old letter from Mr. E. A. Ellis telling me that he detected the species at Gorleston during April 1936.—ARTHUR MAYFIELD ; 2 2 Sept.

COWSLIP X POLYANTHUS.—I have found at Flixton near Bungay two groups of Cowslips, containing three or four plants. each, of a distinctly pink colour ; in some cases a pink and ordinarily-coloured bloom grow on the same plant. These groups are some distance apart, and nowhere near any coloured Primulas or flowers of that sort. Is this unusual, for I have never noticed it before ? I enclose a bloom to show the coloration.—R. SHAFTO ADAIR (BART.) ; 13 May, 1 9 4 7 .

[Cowslips Primula veris, I , . trequently hybridise with Primroses P. acaulis, L., in a wild State, but very rarely with the various forms of dark-coloured garden Polyanthus, such as the interesting specimen received. T h e latter I have met with wild onlv at Theberton and, this spring, at Chelsworth.—F. W. S.]

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BOTANICAL N O T E S FOR 1947.—This has been one of the poorest years for new botanical records I can recollect. F r o m the middle of May the drought set in and Vegetation dried up, some species did not succeed in producing a single flower. In Hind's Flora is a record of the attractive Wood Cudweed (Gnaphalium sylvaticum, L.) for Woolpit Heath. Nothing seems to be now left of Woolpit Heath where marked on the map ; but the plant still occurs sparingly on some rough ground, formerly arable, between Woolpit and Shelland.* This is the first time I have found it in Suffolk, where it must be now very local; though I found it at Armathwaite in Cumberland a few years ago, and was able to recognise it from the rosettes of silvery grey lanceolate leaves when exploring Woolpit and Shelland on 11 May and later found several of the dry flowering stems of the previous autumn. T h e North American Monkey flower (Mimulus Langsdorfii, Donn.= M . guttatus, DC.) is only slowly extending its ränge in Suffolk, possibly becausc of our drier climate. In Westmorland, Cumberland and oth»r parts of Britain it is frequent and often abundant. This summer I found it in the Ken Brook at Purdis F a r m Parish ; we have records from Capel St. Andrew and Wherstead. T h e plant prefers a light moist peaty and sandy soil, with clear running water.

Another alien, the tall handsome pink and mauve Himalayan Balsam (Impatiens glandulifera, Royle) should soon be found in Suffolk in similar habitats to the Mimulus. It is very frequent and spreading rapidly in the N o r t h and Midlands. T w o specimens were sent me this year, of which one appeared in a Suffolk garden and the other came from a north London suburb. This Balsam puzzles students as it is not mentioned in the majority of British floras, which are hopelessly out of date. It is very hardy and can withstand diverse conditions. We can see it growing luxuriantly beside the River Eden in Cumberland, and just as vigorously on the banks of dirty canals and the River Mersey in Lancashire. It is certain to become common in Suffolk.

T h e Wavy Hair Grass (Deschampsia flexuosa, Trin.) presents a beautiful sight when flowering on the wooded hill-sides in Derbyshire, where it is often abundant. In early spring it can be recognised by the greenness of its green blades, forming soft cushions. • In Suffolk it is uncommon, Hind gives five localities and it grows also at Polstead, Bromeswell, plentifully this year on Rushmere Heath, sparingly on Bixley and Black Heaths (Purdis Farm) : obviously it has always occurred on these heaths, but * F a d e n ' s 1783 M a p distinctly shows t h e H e a t h t h e n existing and exactly occupying that triangle of roads mid-way between W o o l p i t and Shelland churches t h a t the O r d n a n c e now names ' Woolpit H e a t h ' , t h o u g h all u n d e r cultivation. It was just west of the extensive " Woolpit and Shelland Woods " of 1783, now so woefully reduced. Did t h e ' G r e e n •Children ' emerge f r o m these woods circa 1150 ?—ED.

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hitherto unnoticed. Another grass, Triodia decumbens, Beauv., can also be found there sparinglv ; and Cerastium arvense, L., is on Black Heath.

A NEOTROPIC IMPORTATION. M r s . Rüssel Paul of Ipswich gave m e specimens this s u m m e r o£ Roubieva multifida, W., a Buenos Ayres plant that comes u p annually about the stables on her farm at Wherstead ; evidently derived f r o m the imported feeding foods. T h i s is the first record I have of this alien f o u n d in Suffolk.

I shall be pleased to hear of other u n c o m m o n aliens. Sir Shafto Adair wrote to me on 26 Sept. about seed pods forming on his Tecoma radicans, auct., at Flixton Hall. K e w considered it was very unusual for it to seed in this country ; and one could only suggest that the hot summer had been responsible for the developm e n t of the fruits.

D ü r i n g the erection of war-time coastal defences m u c h shingle and sand were shifted and many changes have taken place. T h e grassy and flowery d u n e s between T h o r p e n e s s and Sizewell have been partly washed away ; the Hippophae rhamnoides bushes are all gone, with Jasione montana, L . and the rare Atriplex laciniata, L .

Shingle is piling u p where formerly there were sandy beaches, as is especially noticeable at Bawdsey between the m o u t h of the D e b e n and East L a n e . I f o u n d the rare Frankensia leevis, L., this year at Hollesley beside the River Ore, probably Coming u p f r o m seeds that had lain d o r m a n t for many years, for there was no sign of it there in pre-war days.

T h e construction of concrete roads at Shingle Street for removal of shingle has spoilt the amenities of the beaches by giving motorists and others (not naturalists) access to a very m u c h larger area than was formerly served : all to t h e detriment of nesting birds. T h e majority of local flowers have survived, t h o u g h h u n d r e d s of trippers now invade these beaches during s u m m e r week-ends.

T h e Sea Pea (Lathyrus maritimus, Big.) has gone f r o m the much disturbed and mechanically shifted shingle at Easton and S o u t h wold. Rumex maritimus, L . and Chenopodium botryoides, Sm., are at Easton, and the former (Golden Dock) is also f o u n d beside the brackish ditches at Bawdsey where the hybrid Reed M a c e ( T y p h a latifolia X angustifolia) occurs. At Bawdsey many changes have taken place : formerly there was an area of sandy shir.gle in f r o n t of the M a n o r G a r d e n s towards the m o u t h of the D e b e n , like a miniature L a n d g u a r d C o m m o n , but this area has been washed away with the total loss of its interesting flora. T h e r e is more Salsola kali, L . and Cakile maritima, Scop., than formerly near the ferry ; and H e n b a n e (Hyoscyamus niger, L.) has come u p on disturbed sandy soil, with the alien Reseda alba, L . T h e shingle ridges of O r f o r d and S u d b o r n e beaches, especially the older and grassy ones, are still a paradise cf flowers and colour in M a y , J u n e and early July. T h r i f t or Sea Pink, Bladder Campion, Sea Pea, Yellow H o r n e d P o p p y , etc., occur in profusion. T h e beauty and

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colour of the flowers of these beaches must be seen to be believed, for they are almost unique and the finest heritage remaining on the Suffolk coast, although a considerable part has been somewhat spoilt by misuse as a bombing ränge for a number of years.—F. W .

SIMPSON ; 24 Sept.

EXCEPTIONAL B L O O M . — A large Yucca gloriosa, in the garden of West View House at Corton, bore remarkably fine flowers last O c t o b e r . — D R . MEAD, V.V. 9 t h .

CORD GRASS SPREADS.—The useful Spartina Townsendi, Grov.,

is now growing in strong clumps on east side of the clay sea-bank beside Blythburgh main road.—E. R . L O N G , V.V., 1 0 Oct. A N OASIS OF FERNS.—At Farnham we had just turned off the Saxmundham road and got to Friday-street towards Snape, when the engine ' boiled ' ; so we stopped for water at a cottage. T h e cottagess kindly gave us a rouged smile with her corked eyes, and fetched a pail, which went to the back-yard well, nicely covered, about three feet in diameter and some fifteen deep. T h e n the lifted cover indeed gave a revelation : for only a foot, immediately below it, the well-mouth showed a circle of startlingly refreshing green with masses of Harts-tongue Ferns (Scolopendrium vulgare, Sym.) in all stages of growth. Here was a veritable oasis amid the aridity of sun-withered plant-decadence on sterile Glacialgravel in the heat of late September.—P. J. BURTON. SOME T A L L PLANTS—Herbage habitually growing in permanently moist situations sometimes attains prodigious height in a hot summer, such as that of 1947, when many Phragmites communis, Trin., at Glevering Bridge over the Aide River attained fully 8 feet. These reminded me of that warm year 1921, when I noticed the same Reed at just 10 feet beside the Little Ouse at Brandon staunch, where the Urtica dioica, L., rose 8 feet, Scrophularia nodosa, L., 7 feet and Epilobium hirsutum, L., 6, all on 11 August.

O L D SUFFOLK TREES.—Three of the ancient Oaks, standing in the pasture immediately N W . of Priestly Wood in Barking I found by measurement on 18 May last to be, from S. to N . :—20J feet, just 19 feet, and 14 feet 8 inches. T h e larger of those near the church here (Trans, iv, 244) is 18 feet 4 inches.—The hollow Oak at Frostenden portus maris is 15 feet 5 inches in girth at five feet from ground.—The 4-500 yards from Foxhall Hall to the Ken or Kern Brook (AS. Cene, meaning keen, fierce ; hence a brawling brook in, say, AD. 947 ; now placid, but always running) and beyond it, has been bordered by a magnifkent avenue oi Elm-trees, most of which are now gone and others much decayed. T h e two firest are equidistant on opposite sides of the Brook, here just twelve feet broad, and of the roadway ; they both measure exactly 18 feet at five feet from the ground. I remember the east cottage to have been an off-licence inn fifty-three years ago ; its licence was revoked about 1900. When was the short avenue of PCanadian

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Sequoia-firs* planted near the Hall ? Another Sequoia, ' cross between Fir and Cypress is in Humboldt State Park and reputed the highest tree in the world (licks creation, in facti), attaining 364 feet and estimated to weigh some two thousand tons.—CLAUDE M O R L E Y , 1 5 August.

C H A N G E IS O U R PORTION. . . and it is obvious that now Britannia Waives the Rules, by retaining bombing-sites promised to be released when war was done.—As Members saw upon the occasion of the October Excursion 1946, the character of the Walberswick (parish boundary runs S. on E. side of Blythburgh Lodge, then follows main dyke to sea, south of Westwood Marshes) cattlemarshes has materially changed during the 1 9 3 9 - 4 5 war on north side of the raised path ; this has now become a saltern, covered with Aster tripolium whereon are hundreds of Cucullia asteris larvas feeding. Seakale Crambe maritima, L. (for which c f . Trans, i, 110), is profusely growing all along the shingle at present. Als:) the Benacre denes, with their masses oiFestuca ovina, L. and other grasses on which the Noctuid-moth Australis used to feed, are completely desolated from the sluice to the broad : nothing now remains but shingle and water.—P. J . BURTON ; there, 1 0 August.

W A T E R SOLDIER.—Stratiotes aloides, Linn., has been found flowering in a pond off the Tuddenham-road in Ipswich. It was observed in this pond also last year.—Miss P . BARRETT, Melton Lodge, Woodbridge ; 23 Sept.

PROFUSE ESSEX CCELENTERATA.—So large a number of Jelly-fish are said, by a London newspaper on 3rd,to have gone out to sea at Southend on the evening tide of 2 September last, that the bows of pleasure-boats ' ploughed through masses of them ' at 1J miles from shore. Such notices lose their main value by lack of the species' identity. One may suppose these to have been the pelagic Aurelia aurita, L., much Suffolk's commonest Scyphomedu.a and fully a foot in diameter, though we never remember it in such conjestion.—ED. PELAGIC SEA-ANEMONES.—During a high southerly gale on 6 January, a glass globe which was one of the torpedo-net buoys of the 1914-8 war was washed ashore at Southwold. Upon it were discovered eight specimens of the Plumosa Anemone, Metridium senile, L. (Trans, supra, iv, 27). No indication was apparent of any method by which it could have become sunk, and their presence thereupon is unaccountable by me. I removed them to a glass-jar of sea-water, wherein seven are now flourishing.—D. W. COLLINGS ;

3 Feb.

1947.

SUFFOLK WORM.—Among the Nematode Nemathelminthid worms of the order Telogonia known here, the very common Round Worm of Cats and Dogs has not hitherto been noted (Trans, iv, p. 228). This Ascaris mystax, auct., AN

UNRECORDED

*Recte the Californian Chamcecyparis (Cupressus) Lawsoniana, F.W.S.

Murr.—

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which habitualiy lives in the smaller intestines of Felis and Canis, often finds its way into the stomach, whence about a hundred specimens were vomited by a male Cat at Monks Soham on 23 February 1947.—H. C. G R A N T ; 4 March.

F O U R W O R M S N E W TO S U F F O L K . — I t may be well to record that I have found the three following adult Trematodes in the course of last summer :—Opisthioglyphe Rance, Fröl., whose host is the common Frog Rana temporaria, L. (Trans, ii, 219) ; Macrodera longicollis, Lühe, whose host is the Grass Snake Tropidonotus natrix, L. ; and Brachycoelium salamandree, Fröl., whose host is the common Newt Molge vulgaris, L. I assume that the Worm Fasciola hepatica, L., has already been noted in Suffolk.—1D ; Sudbury, 22 November. [None of the four names appear among our Worms at Trans, iv, pp. 228-33.—ED.] BEETLES NEAR S O U T H W O L D . — I took my family to Southwold for the first two-thirds of June this year, and then rather casually picked up a few Coleoptera that may be worthy of record in our always delightful Transactions. Dyschirius arenosus, Steph., was found at the clitf-base, with Harpaius latus, L. Hydrobius fuscipes, L., was in ditches ; and I got one pair of Bledius tricornis, Hb., and wish I had taken more for it was not uncommon in Blvthburgh salterns [very local on coast and hitherto known from only Freston (profuse in 1903), Felixstow, Bawdsey, Aldeburgh & Lowestoft.— ED.]. Coccinella obliterata, L., at Dunwich ; CyphonPaykulli, Gu., in Mr. Morlev's paddock at Monks Soham; and plenty of Balanobius salicivorus, Pk., on Southwold willows.—FRANK C. S T A N L E Y , Southsea ; 5 Sept.

Phyllopertha horticola, L., AT SEA.—Will you kindly name these Beetles, just taken by me floating on the sea at Thorpness.— H . E. C H I P P E R F I E I . D ; 1 June 1 9 4 7 . [P. horticola is one of the smaller Cockchafers, often abundantly eating the leaves of trees in spring and not especiallv connected with the coast, where we have never heard of it drowned before. However, six weeks later we did find a 9 dead on the beach at Easton Bavents, apparently similarly drowned ; as also were certain Colorado Beetles off Guernsey as noted above (p. 120). Cockchafers have been much to the fore this year : Mr. Jim Burton found Cetonia aurata, very rare in Suffolk, to abound in Dorset during July; Geotrypes spiniger, Msh., flew in to light at Monks Soham House immediately after dusk, at 7 p.m. on 11 September, with temp. 74° ; as also did Ilybius fuliginosus, Fab., both there on 19th inst, and at Fritton Lake on 17 Aug. 1935. Rhizotrogus solstit. occurred at both Lowestoft and Southwold in mid-June, as well as one $ on boulder-clay at Monks Soham, where the first Cteviopus sulphureus, normally accounted a coast-species, turned up on Heracleum flower in my paddock on 24 July.—Cicindela campestris, L., was Aying along all sandy paths of west Tuddenham Heath on 28 May, where Betty Whin grows strongly.—MAJOR DEREK E D W A R D S .

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Buprestis aurulenta (Trans, iv, p. 63).—A Beetle, called B.splendens, is said to have bred in 1810 f r o m the Balde fir-wood cf a desk in L o n d o n Guildhall ( M a r s h a m T r a n s . L i n n . Soc. 1811, x, p p .

399-403.) Sir Joseph Banks gave Kirby of Barham a similar account of obviouslv the same individual, now termed B. splendida, ' at Guildhall f r o m a deal table ' f r o m Norway (Life of K i r b y 1852, p. 251).

Hence the Scandinavian B. aurulenta, Jakobson ( = splendens, Fab. - splmdida, Payk.) is reterred to at Proc. Ent. Soc. 1898, p. xxxv, and not the western Nearctic B. aurulenta of Linnaeus, which also attacks Coniferae and was first recorded f r o m Britain ( E M M . 1947, p. 3) this year.—CLAUDE M O R I . E Y .

A N O T H E R INTRODUCED B E E T L E . — A Tortoise beetle, ' w i n d upon some Bananas in the town, was b r o u g h t on 29 N o v e m b e r 1947 to Ipswich M u s e u m and has been named by British M u s e u m Psalidonota Jamaicana, Spdeth., a Chrysomelid of the subfamily Cassidinae. Its presence in such a Situation was obviously entirely accidental; in its native West Indies it is probably injurious to the Sweet Potatoe, Convolvulus batatas, W . T h e beautiful lridescent colours of the Tortoises fade after death to a u n i f o r m dirty straw.—F. W . SIMPSON. [We are unaware of any previous introduetions of this species to Britain. I t appears as u n i q u e here as still is that of Paropsis agricola, Chap., at H o p t o n (Trans, ii, 288), which speeimen was kindly added to our collection in 1934 b y the late M r . Doughty.—ED.] Athous rhombeus, O L I V . , I N SUFFOLK.—This Click Beetle, t h u s described in 1790 though Geoffroy had called it villosus in 1785, was first f o u n d in Britain at Lee W o o d in K e n t before 1802 (Marsham), later at Enfield, and C o b h a m Mark in Surrey. Elsewhere it is recorded f r o m only D u n h a m Park in Cheshire and Sherwood Forest in Notts ; excepting the New Forest, its main headquarters, and a single larva in I. Wight, in Hants. Sir H u d s o n Beare, M r .

Donisthorpe and I f o u n d very many of its larvse u n d e r the dead bark of a colossal Beech-tree in D e n n y W o o d on 13 August 1901, b u t we could not r e a r t h e m ; one of the perfect Beetles flew to light in a L y n d h u r s t house at 11.30 p.m. on 20 July 1925 ; and I beat another f r o m an old Oak bough, eight feet f r o m the ground, at Wilverley Inclosure in N F . on 13 July 1 9 3 6 : which is t h e total of my fifty years' experience of the species.—Similar to m y shock of 26 July 1943 (Trans, v, 116) was that I experienced u p o n discovering a fine Athous rhombeus lapping u p moth-sugar u p o n the top of a barked (and so unnameable) field-post between Foxhall Hall and the Ken Brook, a h u n d r e d yards away, that runs to Kirton Creek. T h i s was on a peculiarly warm night, at 10 p.m. 16 August 1947, in a t e m p . of just about 70 3 , with a mere suggestion of northerlv air and a very dark star-lit sky. T h e district retains a great deal of ancient timber, especially Ash, in which wood the larva of this Beetle is carnivorous u p o n those of other Insects.

But, t h o u g h a favourite collecting-ground of the late T r e a s u r e r

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Elliott and mine during the decade 1894-1904, we then entertained no suspicion of this New Forest speciality's presence.—CLAUDE MORLEY. T H E WASP BEETLE.—The enclosed suddenly appeared in our kitchen : they may have come off some vegetables, but I cannot say for certain. I suppose you have specimens of the same kind, but perhaps not. What are they and do they damage the garden ?

—Your affect. cousin (MAJOR) J . G. PERCY WELLS, 15 Moorfield Road, Woodbridge ; 12 May 1947. [Occupants of the box were a pair of the Longicorn Clytus arietis, L., which has been unusually prevalent this spring especially just outside Raydon Wood on 24 May. Here two or three, often in cop., were sitting upon every one of a long line of newly-lopped Ash posts, supporting cursed barbed-wire. More often they are seen emerging from their own larvse's borings in the smaller twigs of ' rustic ' woodwork in gardens : handsome Beetle with vespoid markings and red legs.— C.M.] T H E P I N E WEEVIL.—This Weevil may be of interest, as I cannot recall coming across it previously, though it may be common. I discovered it on a Pine bole while looking for Sphinx pinastri.— R. W. KINGSLEY KEFFORD, 38 High Street, Wickham M a r k e t ; 21 June. [It is Hylobius abietis, L., by no means an uncommon Beetle, often found boring into fir logs on the ground and usually accounted injurious to all Coniferae. Much more general in Suffolk now than before the Govt. planted : in 1899 known here from only Bentley Woods !—ED.] COLEOPTEROUS D I S A P P O I N T M E N T S . — T h e often valuable negative evidence, afforded by the record of what o n ; did not find, is too frequently ignored. Three occasions of th's sort were met with in the past season :—(1) Polystichus connexus, Gf. (vittatus, Brl.) was " taken on 13 & 16 April and 17 May 1828 under a stone heap on the sea shore above high-water mark near Southwold in great profusion and so local that none were under other stone heaps within a few yards " (Curtis B.E.). So on 19 April 1947 a small Informal Excursion narrowly searched the base, as well as summit, of the low pleistocene cliff for the two miLs from Southwold north to Easton Broad : fruitlessly. Just what a ' stone-heap ' may convey, when applied to an entirsly shingle beach, is obscure.

(2) Psilothrix cyaneus, Ol. (nobilis, Kw.) occurred not uncommonly in the flowers of Glaucium flavum, Cr., upon Aldeburgh beach on 15 June 1896 ; and has rever recurred there or elsewhere in our County. Two Norfolk specimens bound its northern ränge in Britain. These Horned Poppies were in unusual plenty upon every sand-hill from Covehithc to the Buss Creek in the first half of last July : hundreds were searched, fruitlessly. (3) Larinus planus, Fab. (carlinse, Ol.; is a Weevil unrecorded from Suffolk and, in England, confined to south of the Thames ; but, as it is known from Barmouth and Carnarvon, no reason for its absence

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here becomes apparent. A decade's occasional search just north •of the Waveney at Aldeby brick-works, where Carline Thistles are common and another, on 14 July 1947, at South Cove where that plant abounds, have been fruitless.

A P L A N T - B U G N E W TO SUFFOLK.—Whenever the coast sand-hills of our County have been worked for Heteroptera, I have invariably kept a wide eye for the Norfolk Capsid Pceciloscytus vulneratus, Panz. (1806 et Wölfl:), recorded new to Britain by my late friend, Thouless of Wroxham, as attached to Galium verum on the Yarmouth denes, where he took over a dozen specimens on 17 September 1897 ( E M M . 1898, p. 15). It has not, however, been taken hitheito outside Norfolk (I.e. 1945, p. 262), though attention was called to it and additional features of distinetion noted by Jones (Ent. Ree. 1930, p. 47).—At 1 a.m. on 3 July 1947 a single ? (vertex broader than eye) flew to a Drilliant Moth-lamp in a grassy hollow on the sand-hills, a hundred yards from the sea, covered with Marram-grass, Galium verum and other denes-vegetation, a half-mile south of Kessingland in Suffolk. Of course at that time-o'-day, it was supposed to be the common P. unifasciatus, Fab., which also has been taken by me at light, in a Lyndhurst house on both 16 & 17 July 1925 and at Denny Wood in the New Forest on 14 July 1934 ; but a lingering suspicion of Thouless' rarity from so similar a Situation put it into a tube. Therefrom it is best distinguished by the comparative length of antennal joints, and easiest by the semicircularly pure white and not flavous cuneus.

Not improbably it is quite common at this ill-worked locality, which extends its known British distribution fifteen miles southward along the same coast. Of course it is an addition to the Hemiptera that come to light (Trans. Entom. Soc. a few years ago) ; and-1 will add that at dusk on 8 Sept. 1947 Nabis ferus, L., flew into Monks Soham House & settled upon the lamp.—CLAUDE MORLEY. T w o AQUATIC HETEROPTERA.—This spring I have fished Ranatra linearis, L., from a backwater of the River Stour at Sudburv and the allied Naucoris eimieoides, L., from a pond between Boxstead and Newton Green villages.—H. C. GRANT ; 1 Sept. [The latter is abundant all up our coast from Bawdsey to Yarmouth in brackish water ; but apparently rare inland, whence the sole records are from Tostock ponds about 1900 (W. H. Tuck) and Tuddenham St. Mary in April 1935 ( E M M . 1935, 142). T h e latter seems to keep so persistently to deep water that it appears rare, though known from Fritton Lake, where several were taken at some distance from the margin in 1930 (E. A. Ellis, 1932), to the Stour. Curtis knew " they have been taken in S u f f o l k " {Brit. Ent. pl. 281) probably from Donovan's 1794 plate 105, who adds " Thomas Walford Esq. met with one in a bog near Cläre Priory, Suffolk, which is preserved in the Museum of Mr. Parkinson " (? of Harwich, the conchologist). T h u s it has persisted in the Stour during 1794-1947, unsuspected ! — E D . ]

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AN INTRODUCED CRICKET.—Is this (handsome ?) fellow new to Suffolk ? He hops like a Grasshopper. Please send me his name, as I have not met with him before. One of his antennae which are just as long as the whole body, is broken. He was found at the railway Station here, in a truck containing some foreign cattle-food, probably cocoanut cake. Mr. Geoffrey Burton caught a second a few days later on a tree by the same Station.— E. W. PLATTEN, Needham Market; 9 July 1947. [The Insect was still lively, after at least two days in the post, when received on 16th. It is not mentioned in Malcolm Burr's 1897 ' British Orthoptera ' ; but in his 1936 ' British Grasshoppers p. 120, he remarks that " a large black Cricket with 'ong wings, Gryllus bimaculatus, DeGeer, like a bigger field cricket, 20-32 mm. long, is sometimes imported in fruit or flowers from the south of Europe or north of Africa " : which is vague and apparently based upon the sole four records discoverable. These are its introduction by shipping to the Deptford (London : E M M . 1913, 164 & 1923, 67,) and from Spain in fruit to the Liverpool, docks (I.e. 1909 p. 4 4 ) ; though never to Suffolk before. We possess fifty speeimens in all stages of growth from the Camaroons (FitzRoy), Algiers, Madeira, Grand Canary, Teneriffe, Lanzarote, Palma (Prevost, ex coli. Elliott) and St. Helena (Chevallier : ' Gryllus Capensis ' of Melliss). Round Cape Town this Liogryllus bimaculatus, DeG., was found ( E M M . 1920, 183) to sc abundant oeneath stones during March. Earliest of above four indigenous records is a $ in Stephens' collection, prooably the species called ' Acheta italica, Fabr.' in his 1827 Cat. but not in his 1835 Illus., still preserved in M u s .

Brit.—ED.]

A N EARLY G R A S S H O P P E R . — I t is i n t e r e s t i n g t o n o t i c e t h e s e n s e in

which the gen irictermLocusta was used in earlytimes; b u t ! have not searched the classic authors for it. Before his papaev in A.D. 590, Pope Gregory began a journey from Italy to christianise the Saxons in England circa 575 ; and " on the fourth day of his journey a Grasshopper alighted on the page of the bible he was reading during' the noontide halt. ' Ecce locusta he exclaimed and interpreted the occurrence as meaning ' Loco sta ' : stay where you are. Within the hour arrived the emissary commanding him to return to Rome " (The Venerable Bede's Traditio majorum).

Iience we may certainly gather that the clerical mind at that period regarded our common short-horned Grasshoppers (Stenobothrus, Fisch., spp.) as representirig Locusta, formerly used for the longherned ones but now restricted to genuine Locusts, Pachytylus migratorius, L .

DRAGONFLIES OF SUFFOLK IN 1 9 4 7 . — L i t t l e r e m a r k a b l e o c c u r r e d

among the Odonata, despite the long and brilliant sunshine.

Libellula depressa was noted at Stonham in spring (Miss Fowler), Monks Soham on 17 & 22 May (Mly), and in Brandeston Wood on 9 June ("Stanley). L. fulva douDtless has a broader ränge along

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the Little Ouse and Waveney valley than yet ascertained : it wa.; noted in late May as far east as Aldeby marshes (Btn).

CordylegasterBoltoni (supra, p. 55) "is a creature of small and swift-running streams, at least it has a partiality for hawking along such, and this would account for its absence from Suffolk's flat lands " (Dr. Blair, in lit. 26 Julv). Brachytron pratense : Barking Wood 26 May (Mly), Blythbro Wood in June (Btn). JEschna cyanea : a teneral one in Brandeston Wood 9 June (Stanley); fully a score of vacated nymph-casej were floating on a small pudd'ed pond, quite devoid of any water-weeds, on the top of Corton cliff 2 July ; a pair Aying about ten feet high over Monks Soham paddock at noon on 11 August, made a very large bündle : one rarely sees members of this genus coupled (Mly). /E. isoscelcs : none in Suffolk ; but it continues to occur in the Norfolk broads, where Col. Fräser of Bournemouth took his first in June, but then quite failed to find any trace of Agrion armatum, Charp., thought probably to have been -xterminated in Britain bv recent saltwat.;r inundations (Entom. 1938, p. 175); three near Hickling on 31 May this year (I.e. 1947, p. 165). One tä. grandis was seen in H i n d t r clay Fen of the Waveney on 18 August (Bin) ; at Monks Soham it seems simply to pass through, like this year's solitaire in garden at 11 a.m. on 1 Augu?t, t h ; first h t r e since circa 1938. A female Panorpa communis, L., flew in to light thera soon aftcr dusk on 18 August : I had no previous knowledge that the family was at all photophilous.

T w o T R I C H O P T E R A N E W TO SUFFOLK.—None of our Members seem to be working Caddis-flies unfortunately, at present. T h e v are quite easily bred in aquaria : just the kind of task that should appeal to Dr. Collings or Mr. Beaufoy. Whoever shall take up the subject will find our County List (Trans, i, 190-4) very extendible, for the group has never here reeeived the attention it deserves. Meanwhile, this year afforded two new kinds (to be added at I.e. 193) :—Setodes interrupta, Fab., was plentifully disturbed among Reeds bordering Fritton Lake round the Hall boathouse on 23 June. A half-dozen Hydropsyche instabilis, Curt., probably the generally commonest species of its genus, frequent in Somerset, the New Forest, the Derby glens, &c, flew to a brilliant moth-lamp midway between Foxhall Hall and the Ken Brook after dark on 16 August. It may be noted that several of the hardly rarer H. angustipennis, Ct., were sitting quiescently on Reed-stems growing in ths River Deben at Brandiston on 12-26 June 1943.

M A Y F L I E S : Ccenis spp.—C. horaria, L . , came freely to the Moth-lamp in North Cove marshes of the Waveney on 26 June 1947. Some confusion appears between this species and C. halterata, Etn., at Trans, iii, pp. lix & 199 : it arose from my gift of both the latter (now synonymised with C. macrura, Steph., NEW to Suffolk) and C. Harrisella, Curt. (also NEW to Suffolk : taken by

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me at Brandon staunch of the Little Ouse River 31 July 1930) to Mus. Brit. in 1933. Elsewhere I have C. horaria from Pond Head light in New Forest 18 July 1934; C. macrura from Cross Canals in Cotswold Hills, where it was profuse in spiders-webs during early July 1931 ; and C. rivulorum, Etn., from Lathkill Dale in Derbyshire 10 July 1935. The only other British kind, C . moesta, Bengt., I do not know.—CLAUDE M O R L E Y .

S O M E EARLY L E P I D O P T E R A . — I searched the Fritton woods, where we found young Sibylla larvae last year, on 13 April without seeing a sign of any ; though about a dozen hibernaculae were noted, which even the hot sun had failed to hatch. At Frostenden on 12th was only Vanessa Urtica:; but there on 22nd were Munda, Grad Iis, Incerta and Meticulosa on Sallow-blossom. Mr. and Mrs. Austin Richardson have arrived in Lowestoft on 23rd in search of V. polychloros ; and Mr. Nigel Wykes, an Eton master, has been taking it (and thence bred seventy larvae) this month round Needham and Stowmarket, though it is much scarcer than in 1946. P . J . B U R T O N . — V . polychloros seems now well established again at Waldringfield, where a good many have appeared this spring (though none later: Aston). Lyccena argiolus emerged on 24 April, and increased in numbers tili the north wind of 30th.

C A N O N W A L L E R , 1 May. [Hollv Blues first appeared at Monks Soham on 20 April when one flew to light indoors at 8 p.m., with Orneoles hexadactyla, Linn. ; they became frequent on 29th in paddock, where Baron de Worms took it on 3 May, with the first Thecla rubi, L., ever seen there ; by 7th Argiolus was worn, though they persisted in the garden tili 29 May. Second brood emerged on 20 July, lasting tili 21 August.—ED.] Stonham on 18 April; Vanessa C-album there on 26 June, with Thecla W-album, on flowering Privet.—ELAINE M. F O W L E R .

W H E R E FLAVICORNIS ABOUNDS.—To Foxhall we took both sugar and light on 23 March, hoping at one or other to catch a few 540.

Polyploca flavicornis, L. Ät dusk Marginata and Satellitia came sparingly to the latter, followed by single Pedaria, /Escularia and Vaccinii : sugar failed. Soon the first Flavicornis flew to light and 115 minutes later, when we left, there were 25 boxed, 10 on the sheet below car-lights, as many under it, yet more Aying round and amid grass, in equal sexes, with three Hispidaria. J O H N & G E O F F . BURTON ; 28 March.—One in Stowmarket 15th, and two P. ridens in Barking Wood 28 April at light. A . E . A S T O N . ' FORGETERY '.—Persistent ill-fortune has dogged the adventures of the ' Little Besters ' (Trans, iv, p. xlv) through the course of the present season, from which high endeavour was expected to derive so much, after such a foully severe winter. In the particular case of 7th June this began by essential apparati leaving themselves behind at Lowestoft, which consequently had to be revisited from Monks Soham before departure could be fairly made for Bury, via Diss and the old " King [EdmundJ's Road "

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through Botesdale. Thence is but seven miles to Icklingham, where headquarters were fixed on Temple Bridge (because an Elm-tree athwart the lane barred further progress !)* H*ere we sugared about forty posts and trunks at dusk, 8.15, when hardly anything was Aying in the rather cool and very stiff westerly breeze from Tuddenham Fen. Our bridge had been renovated during the war, though the soldiers' culvert to the south of it is now impassable for cars ; on its north side an old artificial causeway carries the road through quaking bog for a quarter-mile, and on the south Tuddenham Heath stretches virgin breckland to that village : it is terra incognita to the Lepidopterist (cf. Trans, ii, p. clxvi). With such environment half the specialities of Wicken should have crowded from the north and all the Steppe Noctuse of Brandon from the south : numbers indeed were present, but their lack of either element was marked. Possibly an essential drug in the sugar was ' forgotten'. There came in varying plenty to this bait, in order of S N S . Memoir : Tenebrosa, Morpheus, Taraxaci, Trigrammica, Lucipara, Scabriuscula, Gemina, Lithoxylea, Polyodon, Rurea, Basilinea, Didyma, Unanimis, Bicoloria, Strigilis, Segetum, Exclamationis, Plecta, Putris, C-nigrum, Rubi, Festiva, Pronuba, Fissipuncta, Pallens, Comma, Dentina, Genistee, Thälassina, Oleracea, Brassica, Albicolon and Montanata : thirty-three of the commonest Moths. Nor did light on the heath at midnight raise more than Menthrasti, Jacobece, C-nigrum, one Eupithecia exiguata and one Ocellatus.

Then at 2 a.m. head-lights forgot to funetion, and the car had to follow a torch over the treacherous causeway and loose sand beyond. Presently the late moon rose, giving light to drive ; then at 2.45 a.m. came dawn flushing the eastern sky, and before home was reached at 3.30, with temp. 50°, daylight swelled and a very precious net was found to have been ' forgotten ' on Temple Bridge !—PJB. & C M .

EAST SUFFOLK Eustrotia luctuosa, ESP.—Though by no means yet ' generally distributed ' here (Trans, iv, 256 ; v, 108), this species is spreading. Over a dry and gravelly pasture, slightly above the Gipping marshes and due west of Claydon Old Halt, * F e w Naturalists give adequate thought to the great antiquity of roads that have essentially modified the country-side by arterial cartage of both Plants and Animals adown the ages. On the sandy bank, just N E . of T e m p l e Bridge, stood a T e m p l e - c h u r c h of Saint M a r y belonging to the Knights Hospitallers in mediaeval times. Now, in J u n e 1381 " w h e n Bishop Henry of Norwich came to Icklingham at a spot [identified in Blomefield's Norfolk iii, 109, as T e m p l e Bridge, where the High Road from T h e t f o r d to Cambridge crossed the River Lark, in stead of the later bridge at Barton Mills] where a mill somewhat narrowed the roadway between T h e t f o r d and Cambridge, he met L o r d T h o m a s de Morley and another knight names Brewes. And here they delivered up to him three ringleaders, Cubith and S e e t h and T r u n c h , of the 1381 Peasants' Rising.

T h i s most excellent man led them with him to Wymondham, where he caused t h e m to be beheaded. In the same place many malefactors remained, who did not dare to proeeed further in their insurrection " , says Capgrave (Powell 1896, p. 38).

134

OBSERVATIONS

I saw more than a dozen specimens Aying and took one for confirmation among a profusion of Convolvulus arvensis in no more than some ten minutes on 10 July 1942 (E. W. PLATTEN). One flew to light, as at Trans, iv, 136, indoors at Stowmarket about 3 August 1947 (A. E. ASTON, in lit. 12 Sept.).

A NORFOLK SPECKLED F O O T M A N . — I have at present a pupa of Utetheisa pulchella, L., which is still quite healthy though I much doubt if it will survive our winter frosts. Its larva I discovered last August [pretty surely on Myosotis palustris.—ED.] in a ditch of the Caister (Norfolk) marshes, while I was searching Galium palustre for those of Elpenor.—PETER O. JOHNSON, Gorleston ; Dec. 1947.

COLOURED SKETCH OF FOX LARVA.—Could you identify the enclosed sketch of a caterpillar, which my sister made at Dunwich late last month ?—Miss MARIE HANCOCK, Ovington House ; 6 Oct. [Eriogaster rubi, L., always numerous on heaths there.—ED.] SUFFOLK LEPIDOPTERA IN 1947.—A year reminiscent throughout of the preceding hard winter, much more remarkable for its immigrants than any plenty among the usually commoner kinds : by no means bearing out the general axiom that frost is preferable to the mou'd of a damp winter. Nos. are those of our 1937 ' M e m o i r ' . 21. Russula ? 2 were frequent among heather at Dunwich on 28 vi (Btn); 24. Hera, L., Newton Abbot in Devon, August (Beaufoy); 33. Reveyana, one at Foxhall 17 Oct. 1946 ( G B t n ) ; 34. Leporina, of four larva: collected in Suffolk in August 1945 the two smaller died and two, then f-grown, ate Älder tili 28th, when one remained green and the other on 29th turned smoke-coloured throughout; both pupated on 3 I s t ; the green male emerged on 28 May following and the other pupa, which was streaked with silver, on 22 June 1946 produced " Ventricosus impressus, T h u n b . " (Entom. 1947, 195); 61. Pyralina, Needham Market (GBtn) ; 85. Mama, on Monks Soham walls 26 vii to 12 viii, one pair in cop. 6th (Mly) ; 103. Ophiogramma, Needham ; 119. Many Ripa larva; on Lowestoft denes 22 Sept. (De W o r m s ) ; 132. Agathina, on heaths at Playford in ix 1946 (GBtn) and Foxhall {Chipperfield) ; 139. Castanea, one perfect typical rosy form, on sugar at dusk at Foxhall Heath 6 ix ; 147. Glareosa, with the last (Btn) also Foxhall and Playford (GBtn) ; 150. Orbona at the last 9 ix (Aston) ; 153. Janthina, on sugared thistle, Kessingland denes 2 vii (Btn); 167. Aurago, singly at Shrubland, Bosmere and Kesgrave, late in 1946 (GBtn) ; 170. Gilvago, Foxhall 6 ix (Btn) ; 184. Umbratica, on palings in Southwold 15 vii (Mly) ; 185.

Asterts, larvae profuse in Walberswick marshes (Btn, supra); 209. Albipuncta, Playford (GBtn), Foxhall (Chpf & Aston), Lowestoft denes (Btn); 229. Cucubali, on Corton cliff 2 vii (Mly) ; 274. Uncula, T u d d e n h a m Fen 28 v (Major D . Edwards) ; 284.

Gamma, no influx wh'atever, almost scarce : singly at Kessingland vi, Covehithe and Southwold vii, but one over a large Lucerne

OBSERVATIONS

135

field at Snape 7 ix (Mly); 293. Chrysorrhcea, quite scarce, first at Stonham 12 vii (Miss Fowler) ; 296. Monacha, one Needham garden 3 viii (Platten); 319. Pendularia & 479. Punctularia, T u d denham Fen 28 v (Edwards); 380. Spartiata, over a dozen on Broom twigs at Barham 26 x 1946 ; 387. Vetulata, two worn 9$ beaten Buckthorn in Tuddenham Fen (GBtn) ; 399. Virgata, several at Mildenhall in July (Goddard) ; 418, Dubitata, $ on 14 vii in MS. outhouse, just as $ at Trans, iv, 259 (Mly) ; 419. Badiata first came to light 9 iv, when all Moths were five weeks later than in 1946 ; 435. Fluviata, two at Needham, with 453. Multistrigaria ; 458. Quadrifasciaria. $ in cop. with Hydriomena bilineata, L., in Tuddenham Fen (GBtn), Fritton Hall 23 vi & Sotterley (Btn) ; 511. Betularius type form in cop. with var. Doubledayaria, Needham 9 viii (Platten); 528. Moths became early with our blazing August and Fuscantaria was on the wing from 16 viii at Foxhall to 26 ix at Shrubland ; 552. Pinastri first appeared at Herringfleet 5 vi (Ross-Lewin) and was later common there (De Worms) ; at Honeysuckle-fl. Henham 12 vi (Stanley); a dozen taken in Woodbridge School garden this year (S.I.W. Freeman, in lit. 23 Aug.), two dozen last year at the Blythburgh heronry (G. Baker) ; 553.

Ligustri, unusually common at Reydon (G. Baker, vii), seven larvae at Old Newton, vanished after a gale (R. Gibbons), eight during 2-9 July at Needham (Platten), larvae at Aldeburgh, 26 July and Leiston 1 Sept., (Garnett), larvae at MS. 4 Aug. (Mly), one at Trimley 1 Sept. (Peter Crossley); larvae feeding on Ash at Lowestoft (Goddard); 579. Pavonia, unusually scarce: singly at Manningtree 10 May and near Colchester a week earlier (Richardson); larva at Stow Upland 15 Aug. (Mrs. N. Bagnall) ; 591.

Rubi, larvae on heaths at Bucklesham and fifty at Foxhall 18 ix to 8 x 1946 ; a score turned down in Shrubland Park, residue hibernated both in- and out-doors ; 569. Ptilophora plumigera, Esp., is now discovered to be wide-spread : at light in Westgate-street, Ipswich, 6.30 12 xi 1946 (Platten), singly at light Barking, Battisford, Creeting, Barham, Shrubland Park and Northfield Wood in Onehouse, all on lOth, two at Willisham on 16, xi 1946 (John 6 Geoffrey Burton).—A. P. WALLER. 607. C-album, less plentiful than the last half-dozen years : new brood at Southwold butts and Covehithe 15 vii (Mly), first seen Ipswich garden Ist (Kenneth Pretty) & two on lucerne by Snape railway bridge 7th Sept. (Btn) ; 608. Urtica, really rare tili autumn, then profuse ; one in dingy side-street of Chinatown, heart of London's east-end, 1 Oct. (Stiles). 610. Io, really rare and persisted so in autumn*; 609. Polychloros, continued scarce (cf. infra) : * A curious fact is that, t h o u g h not one Io was seen in M o n k s S o h a m garden this a u t u m n , twelve specimens (with ten Urticoe & a Libatrix) had begun to hibernate, as is usual, on t h e ceiling of an u p p e r corridor in the H o u s e by 12 September.—EDITOR.

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OBSERVATIONS

singly at Deerbolt Hall in Stonham 5th (Miss Fowler) and T h u r leston Lodge near Ipswich 3Ist July (K. Pretty); I often see them at Kings-farm in Pebmarsh, Essex, and suppose they are quite common now (M. B. Dawson, 2 Sept.) ; 612-3. Atalanta Sc Cardui, little seen tili Sept. when both became common but only former penetrated to High Suffolk, and abounded in dozens in Stour (Burrows) & Waveney (Munnings) Valleys ; 618-9. Megcera & Semele, both at Lucerne in Snape 7 Sept. (Btn); 624 & 605. Lucina & Aurinia, three especial expeditions to Raydon Wood for former and Tuddenham Mary for latter on 17, 24, 28 May failed to discover traces of either (Btn, Major Edwards, Mly); 639. JEgon. profuse in Rookyard Wood, Dunwich, 28 June, but Wenhaston Heath has been badly burned (Btn). 806. Procris statices, half a dozen Aying in Thorndon Fen 17 June (Stanley); 1200. JEgeria tipuliformis, in Needham Market early July (GBtn); 1203.

Trochilium apiforme emerged unusually early, quite by mid-June at Southwold (Baker), none there in July (Mly).—C. H . S. VINTER.

N o SMALL RINGLETS.—When I was up at Elterwater in the Westmorland lakes, I searched for larvae of ErebiaEpiphron, Knch., which ought to be about during mid-April. For them I explored Red Screes, Langdale Pikes and one or two adjacent localities ; but the season was so poor that there was no sign of either them or their food-plant, Nardus stricta, L. All I came across was a series of dead Sheep, for the most part picked so cleanby Corvidae that they were useless even for Beetles !—C. H. S. VINTER, 1 6 June. [Appended is a valuable note, received on 14 Jan. 1938 from our late Member.—ED.] " My wife and I spent six weeks last summer in Glen Lyon ; on one of the few fine days a friend motored us over the high road to Loch Tay side. At about the highest point the sun shone brilliantly and the delightful little E. Epiphron was abundant. I first found the species in Perthshire in 1895 ; & know of only three localities in the Highlands where it can be taken from a motorable road ; one was on the old Glen Coe road, now closed to motors though available to pedestrians. I expect it always has to be climbed for in the Lake District, and hope the fact will preserve it from extinction there.— K E N N E T H J. M O R T O N , Edinburgh."

Argynnis Paphia, L., var. Valesina, ESP., IN ESSEX.—One day in July 1946 Colonel Mangles and I distinctly saw this well known New Forest form within three miles of the centre of Colchester.

A striking aberration of Euchloe cardamines, L., very similar to that illustrated in Frohawk's Brit. Butt. fig. 20, was taken by me on 12 May last at Windlesham in Surrey. Now Col. Mangles teils me (in lit. 26 July 1947)" I actually took quite a good specimen of Valesina the other day ; and hear from Col. Rank of the Army Medical Corps that, of two seen by him, he also caught one at the same Colchester locality, just outside the borough boundary "—

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137

— A . D. BLAXILL ; 9 August. [At Ramnor Hill in N F . on 19 July 1940 we secured this dark form, carrying in flight, while in cop. with, a typical $ Paphia.—ED.] I took one A. Paphia, of the ordinary form, new to Herringfleet, in my garden on 23 July.— MAJOR ROSS-LEWIN.

SWALLOW-TAILS IN SUFFOLK, 1 9 4 7 . — A fine specimen of Papilio Machaon, L., was captured in the White House garden, close to St. Olaves Station in Herringfleet, on 1 August.—ROBERT C. ROSS-LEWIN, V.V. 2 Aug. [It must be remembered that larvae from Horning of this species were ' put down upon the abundant Peucedanum palustre ' in 1936 at Fritton (Trans, iii, p. cix), no more than a mile distant. One hopes this may be their progeny.

—-ED.] A ragged one of the dark form was taken Aying north over a Stowmarket clover-field on 26 August (ASTON). One larva, feeding on carrot, was found in Wenhaston during Sept. and has now pupated (J. R. ELLIS, V.V. 7 Oct.).

T H E WHITES OF HIGH S U F F O L K . — N e v e r f o r o v e r f o r t y

years

have Pierid Butterflies been in such numbers in my Monks Soham garden as this summer. Nothing unusual of the kind was noticed in spring, when all three common Whites frequented it in their normal plenty, though their advent was late and most Lepidoptera five weeks behind 1946 dates, owing to the snowy March ; Whitethorn hedges were not green tili 21 April, and both Napi and Rapce first seen on 26th, with Brassica on 3 May. From mid-July, however, no hour passed when a dozen, or at the least a half-dozen, Whites were uncountable here, often with more in the conterminous paddock. Throughout August they were nearly confined to the: house's west side on account of the persistent east breeze ; and during that month's latter moiety, the Whites were wholely Napi, rarely with a single casual Rapae and no Brassicse at all.

Their attention was well-nigh confined to the flowers of Bramble and (accompanied by nothing but many Bombus solstitialis, Pz.) of the African Lycium barbarum, L., mantling one wall.

Ivyblossom, fully expanded this year by 19th and then food of 1947's rare V. c-album, has no Iure for Whites. While I write on the lawn, six Napi flutter at the above Tea-tree and, as they subside upon it, six others flutter round a different part. How many stay the night here, one cannot guess ; but their main direction the whole summer has continued southward, in no case conversely. Surrounding fields grow exclusively cereals ; I known of no adjacent roots, yet the Napi are not necessarily immigrant, as we are too prone nowadays to hastily surmise : they ceaselessly flit far and gently along lane-hedges mile after mile.—C.M. ; 31 August.

EIGHT SUFFOLK Vanessa Antiopa, L I N N . , IN 1947.—Large and Small Tortoiseshells, a Red Admiral, Peacock and_ Comma Butterflies, were in my Leiston garden on 19 July. Ön 21st I took there, Aying about beneath a Birch-tree, a Camberwell Beauty which Mr. Beaufoy photographed and subsequently I

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OBSERVATIONS

released. And again, on 2 September, one was seen by me Aying down the coast just south of the butts at Sizewell; it was not stopping on its way to Thorp, save for momentary pauses to sun itself on a concrete block or pill-box (DR. GARNETT).—A male V. Antiopa was taken by Dr. Ennion at Fiatford in East Bergholt on 29 August; and seen, still alive, by me that evening. The female, Aying with it at the time, escaped. A third was seen in an Essex garden at Dedham last week, i.e. 17-23 August; and a fourth in my owr garden at Fiatford on 24th, but I never a!low a ButterAy to be caught on my place ( L . RICHARDSON, 30 Aug.).

One An« fpecimen was captured at Beccles, in my garden of Fairseat Hoüse on 26 August ( D R . N O S L SHERRARD, in lit. 1 3 Sept.); and another seer, while suckirg a fallen pear, in Norwich on 28 August (E. A. ELLIS). A rather badly worn one became imprisoned in a handkerchief, by Mr. J. F. Madden of Boyton Hall there, in a plum orchard near Haverhill on 31 August (LINGWOOD). And the last was captured, whilst stuck in wet tar, at Lowestoft in late August (GODDARD). Yet another was seen at Swainsthorp near Norwicn chis summer (Miss ROSE). The most northern, of which we have heard this year, were at Clumber in Notts on 1 Sept.

(Times, 6th ; GILES), and Yorks as early as 26 July (Entom. p. 217), which suggests a Danish emigrant.

A BATH W H I T E IN NORTH ESSEX.—I was talking to a friend in his PanAeld Lane garden in Braintree one warm and sunny afternoon, on or about 10 September last, when he called my attention to what appeared to him to be " a stiangely marked ButterAy." I saw at once that it was a male Pieris daplidice, Linn. It gave •quite a long exhibition of itself, resting upon a clump of Michaelmas-daisy Howers. In his eagerness to catch it, my friend used his cupped hands ; but it was just too nimble for him, and soared away : how close to us it had been is apparent. Two or three have been noted in Kent this year (in Entom.), but I recall seeing no record from north of the Thames. Many rare ButterAies doubtless visit wide areas in the course of a genial summer, but go altogether mute unless they come within focal ränge of an entomologist: e.g. the County Paper announced a female Papilio Machaon, L., at Dunmow near here : I asked the captor for details and found him a person who understood and prized his capture.

Here in Braintree I picked up a Limenitis Sibylla, L., from the pavement one day in 1946: hundreds of folk must have already passed over i t ; and it must have haunted many gardens before arriving in the main street. At Bocking I took Colias Hyale, L., in

1 9 2 1 . — G E O R G E I . STOTT ; 2 3 N o v .

1947.

CRIMSON-RINGED BUTTERFLY. IN N O R F O L K . — A specimen of Parnassius Apollo, L., named by him at Norwich Museum, was observed by a man called Hudon to be visiting Ragwort Aowers close to a lime-kiln where he was working at Catton on both 23 & 25 July, but it was not captured. There on 27th I failed to

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139

both see the specimen and to catch a gynandrous Pieris brassicce, L., after watching it for some long time. Argynnis Paphia, L., is still going strong at Beiton Common, Suffolk, whence last week a friend sent me one for confirmation [Examined by us on 2 Aug. —ED.], out of several noticed Aying with Vanessa polychloros, L. — E . A. ELLIS ; 29 July.

A ' CLOUDED-YELLOW YEAR '.—My wife and I spent ten days in May at Hartland in Devon, where I did not see much Insect life, though the number of Colias Edusa made me expect a great show of them now ; and that has been fulfilled. I came across even C. Hyale Aying eastward fast on 11 August, the first time for very many years. My son told me the former were in plenty on the lower slopes of Clearbury Ring, so on 10 August I went up there and had an amazing piece of luck, for of the Afteen different ButterAies I found a brood of Edusa just emerging, among which most of the $ $ were the form Heiice. I saw ten of this form [the main feature of 1947 everywhere.—Ed.] over clover in an hour and caught seven. T h e next day I tried again but without seeing any Heiice, though today one was netted in an adjoining clover-Aeld : by 18th I had taken eleven at that spot, all perfect. What a pleasure it is to get a glorious summer, especially after such a bad one last year and a horrible winter ( C O L . BROUGHTON HAWLEY, Salisbury ; 12 Aug.).—In Hants this is the best year I have ever known for Edusa, and about Southsea I have taken both the forms Pallida and Heiice (F. C. STANLEY ; 15 Aug.).—Clouded Yellows were numerous on the Dorset coast during July (P. J. B U R T O N ) . — I saw Edusa and Hyale round the cliffs at Eolkestone, when staying in July with your and my relations at Tankerton, Canterbury (CANON G. STANLEY MORLEY ; 17 Aug.). Edusa common round St. Albans, no Heiice ; on 18 Augast one Hyale on Dunstable Downs (R. STILES).

They were, as usual, very slow to spread north-east t ) S jffolk.

Among the earliest were one at Kessingland (Goddard) and one at Dedham, both on 27 July ; elsewhere in Essex at CranAeld on 14th, Frinton 26 August and Pebmarsh 2 Sept.—From S. to N. Suffolk shows it, usually singly, at Felixstow on 20 vii, Fiatford 26 viii, Sudbury 1 ix, Higham 2 viii, Trimley 23 vii, Bawdsey 7 & Ramsholt 15 viii to 2 ix, Ipswich 1 ix, Rushmere 31 viii to 3 ix, Thurleston 10 & 24, Woodbridge 24 & Dallinghoo 27 viii to 1 ix, Grundisburgh 11 ix, Wickham Market 1-15, Bosmere 18, Badley 8, Cotton early in viii, Stonham 28 vii to 3 ix, Old Newton Li viu Parham 3 ix, Framlingham Arst on 20 vi, Earls Soham 28 viii, Dunwich (Miss Downing) 10 ix, Blaxhall 26 viii to 1 ix, Leiston throughout viii singly (Garnett), Glemham Pva 28, WingAeld 24, FressingAeld 6, Bardwell 17, T h d n e t h a m Fen 17, Fritt m several on 4, Norwich 25 and Waddington in Lines tnroughoat, viii.

After 6 September we have heard of two at Bildeston on 10, many round Needham (of which one was Aying in street-lamp light ac

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9.30 p.m. on 20th—Platten) ; it was very numerous, with nine var. Heiice and eight Colias Hyale, at Stowmarket by 12th (Aston).

Colias Edusa is still Aying everywhere round Portsmouth (Stanley, 22nd); and three were observed on 23rd at Crowfield and Coddenham (Elaine Fowler). C. Hyale singly on Lucerne at Aldeby in Norfolk on 21st and, with a few C. Edusa, at Walpole and Heveningham on 27th (Btn) ; two near Tillingham in Essex, with one var. pallida of C. Edusa, on 16 Sept. ; also, in Surrey during May, I took a wonderful form of Euchloe cardamines, similar to that illustrated by Frohawk (A.D. Blaxill). A late Q Edusa was taken Aying at Henham on 5 October (Btn) ; eight Aying in East Bergholt on 25 October (RICHARDSON) ; and the last quite fresh $ accompanied me along» a footpath for a hundred yards in Brantham on 6 November, after frost the previous night (DR.) ENNION. A N OLEANDER H A W K - M O T H

(Charocampa nerii, L . ) was taken at Orford, in the garden of Mr. Stearn and presented to the Ipswich Museum per Miss Winifred Austen (Mrs. W. Flick), Wayside, Orford, September 1947.—F. W. S I M P S O N , 4 Oct. WANDERLUST.—Here is a curious occurrence ! On 19 July my wife caught a $ Argynnis Paphia in her Southsea bedroom; and, as there are no large gardens there or in Portsmouth for the nearest field must be at Cosham 5 | miles away, she must have flown ten or fourteen miles from the nearest wood. Another wanderer that I saw on 6 July was a L. sibylla in Stoke-road which is among the main ones of Gosport, far from any wood (F. C. Stanley, in lit.). I observed one Sibylla in a small wood at Debach in late July last (Mr. S. T . Ashton, Bridge-street, Long Melford, 1 Sept.) : quite a new locality for the species.—Records of other Wanderers this year are :—57a. Spodoptera exigua, Hb. (Trans. 1938, p. 35) one ön Buddleia Aower in my Needham Market garden on 16 August (Platten) and three more Aew indoors' to light at Stowmarket at 10.30-11 p.m. on 26-8 of that month (Aston); one on sugar at Sizewell denes on 20 Sept. (Btn). 265 (of Memoir) : Catocala fraxini, L. One taken near Wells in Norfolk during August by R. S. Todd. (Ellis, in lit. 30th). 544. Macroglossa stellatarum, L., has never been so ubiquitous all over east Suffolk for at least a half-century, though in the west our sole record is several at Fornham St. Martin in August (Mr. K. Collins). Curiously, it seems to have come from N. for it began at Oulton Broad on 1 June (Dr. Keene), HerringAeet 3rd, & Lowestoft in early June (Goddard); then at Southwold 5 & Monks Soham 9 (Stanley) Southwold 12 (Dr. Collings). Fully a dozen Aew up & down the sun-hot facade of Framlingham Castle (Aston) and of Fritton Hall 29 (Btn), when several were noted near Southwold church (Mr. E. H. Child); and on 4 July one at Stonham. Ensued a six-weeks' lull, showing but solitaires at Falkenham (A. E. Orford) & beside Southwold church in mid-July (Mly), when it

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141

was common on Lulworth cliff, Dorset (Btn) ; 19th, sucking Teatree at Monks Soham (Miss Bond); 3Ist, Herringfleet, 3 Aug. Needham and 5th Glemham Pva (Miss Debney). Abundant all latter half of August : Thelnetham, Benhall, Saxmundham, Old Newton, Ipswich, Kirton, Glemham Pva, Hitcham at Soapwort fl. (Bull), Hadleigh, Weybread, Monks Soham, Stonham Ă„spal, Wickham Market. And so continued through September at Glemsford, Sproughton, Framlingham, Gislingham, Bacton, Parham, Trimley ; on 7th at Leiston (Garnett), lucerne in Coldfair Green (Btn) and Rushmere (E. R. Colbron) ; successively at Bildeston, Earls Soham, Woodbridge and Martlesham ; 12th at Bury (Free Press), 22nd Dovercourt in Essex (Mrs. Graves), 2 Oct. at Cotton (Mr. Hunt). It has abounded all over south England : ' still Aying everywhere round Portsmouth ' (Stanley 22nd); St. Albans (Stiles 28th); and extended thence to Scotland and north Ireland. 543. Fuciformis shows no Wanderlust, and was taken at Walberswick Heath on 10 June (Stanley).

D. celerio at light in Bungay 17 ix 1945 (Ent. 1947, 195). 549.

D. lineata, F. : Mr. D. Rampling took a $ in the street at Sudbury town during 1946 (Blaxill, in lit. Dec. 1946); also one excellent specimen flew in to light, and was released, at Benhall on 20 Aug. 1947 (Mr. Michael Edwards, 25th). 550. D. euphorbice, L., one was captured at Holton near Haiesworth during 1945 (Boyce, v.v.

17 July 1947). 553. S. convolvuli, L., all singly : at Nicothnaflower in Needham garden at 9.15 p.m. on 23 August (Platten) and they were ' arriving in Norfolk bv 30 th ' (Ellis); garden in Leiston 1 Sept. (Garnett) and two at Leiston later (Ellis), Walton, Suffolk 2 & 7th (Crossley), I. Wight 9th (Blair), Stonham Aspal 16th (Daily Paper), Shingle-street in Hollesley 17th (Mrs. Lehmann), near Ipswich 19th (D. C. Edwards), $ $ in a Colchester garden at Tobacco-flower (Blaxill) and sitting on post at Sizewell denes by sea before dusk on 20th (De Worms), at light in Hoxne on 21 (Mary Brunger), and one picked up on pavement in Ipswich 23 Sept. (Miss E. H. Lamb). 555. A.Atropos, L. : a thatcher found one, which I keep, in straw at Blaxhall Hall on 15 August (Mr. C. B. Stimson there, 1 Sept.); one captured and kept by me that flew out of thatching-straw at Glemham Pva Hall on 21 August, an early date for this species and first I have seen here in four years (C. Pysent Elliott, 22 Aug. So early that a full-fed larva was found at Monks Soham three days later. Also a half-grown one in Mrs. Lund's drive at Alderton on 28th.—ED.) ; one larva at Lowestoft in August (Goddard), and imago on a Colchester wall, 30 Sept. (Blaxill). 601. Argynnis Lathonia, L. : one near Yelverton in Devon on 1 Sept. (Times, 5th ; Giles). 612. Vanessa Atalanta, L. : rare in spring, Aying at Stonham 29 (Miss Fowler), on Kirkley cliff 25 June and on Covehithe shore 17 July ; commoner than usual later and generally distributed ; and on Sizewell cliff 7 Sept. (Mly). 613. V. cardui, L . : none seen tili Needham

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Market 24 August (Platten), very fresh at Wickham Market 27th (Kefford), Ipswich garden 28th (Kenneth Pretty); common on Sizewell coast, and a few on Snape lucerne, 7 Sept. (Btn). 646.

One Bath White in excellent condition was seen on the cliff at Bude where V. cardui & C. edusa reemed exceptionally abundant (The Field 30 Aug.) ; and elsewhere in Cornwall (The Times, 13 Sept. : Giles), where P. brassicce came in from the south sea (Dr. Hocken). Little was seen after the low temperature of 46° late on 24 September.

Rhodometra sacraria, L., AFTER 84 YEARS !—One of these ' prcbably casual immigrants ' in perfect condition flew to light at 37 Chilton Avenue in Stowmarket shortlv before 8 p.m. on 7 September 1947. I passed it over as Calothysanis amata until it came to rest on the ceiling, when the V-shape of its closed wings was quite distinctive. Again, shortly before 8 p.m. on 11 September another flew to the same lighted window ; but it is not in so good a State as that of four nights earlier. These two $$ rather point to the possibility of local breeding; and the food-plant deficisncy is supplied by the fact that the attractive window overlooks first the garden and then a rough road which is covered with grasses and profuse Knotgrass.

I hope other Members have had as succeseful a season as I ; and that the Society will flourish from strength to strength.—ALASDAIR E. ASTON, Stowmarket; 12 Sept.

[It is matter of no small comital gratulation to find we may again claim this sweet Moth, whereof the sole Suffolk specimen, an unlocalised was recorded in 1863 (Ent. Annual 1864, 128).by Peter Bouchard, who was a dealer, of Marling-pit Cottage, Sutton, Surrey (lib. cit. 1860, 5 ) : we do not recollect his presence in Suffolk elsewhere, and he probably received it from a local collector unnamed. T h e suggestion of Stowmarket origin above, i.e. progeny of last year's immigration, is exactly parallelled by 2 $ $ & a $ that were captured by day, in a cyanide-bottle, beside a partially drained large lake near Egham in Surrey on 10-11 August 1947 among, be it noted, profuse Polygonum persicaria, L. (Entom.

1947, 220). T h e species occurs from northern India all round the Mediterranean and we possess a dozen examples from St. Helena (Chevallier), Madeira, Palma and, named by Meyrick, Teneriffe. Never before, says the Brit. Mus., have so large a number come to Britain as during this year. Other Suffolk ones, of which we have heard, follow.—ED.]. I took two males, after flushing them from grassy ground between the river-wall of the Aide and some stubble-fields, at Iken church on 12 & 13 September. On 17th I returned to the London School of Tropical Medicine in Keppel-street, W.C. 1 ; and on the night of 18th happened upon a $ R. sacraria that was sitting on a fence near a street-lamp in West Kensington : imagine my astonishment !

(C. GARRETT JONES, in lit. 19 Sept.)—A quarter-mile from my above light Mr. Chipperfield took a M M . John & Geoffrey

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143

Burton a pair, and on 15th I a ^ with lovely pink tinge, all in a field on which Lucerne has been raised for the last four years, now with a profuse undergrowth of low plants, including plenty ot" Knotgrass ( A . E. ASTON ; 22 Sept.).—A $ of South's var. labda, Cram., with bright crimson streak, flew into my garden of 11 Barking-road in Needham Market about 8.45 on 19 September (E. W. PLATTEN, in lit. 21 Sept.). Four local Members secured eleven Sacraria in a stubble-field at Bramford on 27-8 September. ( G E O F . BURTON).—Suffolk's final record is by Mr. ffennell at Ousden, 45 rriiles from both Orford and the Wash, on 8 October, when it was still occuring south of the Thames where, mirabile dictu, several thousands are estimated by Member Riley to have been on the wing during this autumn (Entom. 1947, 272) : Swanage(DeWorms); eightinmygardennearSalisbury(Hawley)&c.

SENSITIVENESS OF LARVAE TO T E M P E R A T U R E — S e e page 162.

Too late for Classification. .

SOME M I C R O - M O T H S OF 1947.—Local interest in this group of Insects seems to be temporarily suspended and but few records have come in. Homososoma sinuella, Fab., was taken on Kessingland (among all the following from ' Kess.') coast denes at light on 3 July at 1 a.m. Eurhodope advenella, Zk., at Foxhall (among the following from ' Foxhall', where came a very mixed concourse of the Small Earwig, Chrysopa, Delphaces, Deltocephali and the Bug Psallus diminutus, Kb.) between the Hall and Ken Brook at light on 16 August at 11 p.m. Meliphora grisella, Fab., was on Monks Soham study window, over an external strong and longestablished nest in the wall of Apis mellifica, L., on 2 June & 15 Sept. Crambus dumetellus, Hb., several of pale form, Foxhall.

Schcenobius forficellus, Th., common at light in N. Cove marshes of Waveney 26>June. Sccparia cratagella, Hb., Foxhall. Many Phalonia Manniana, Fr., Foxhall., Peronea Caudana was early, in M S . garden on 17 Sept. Many Cnephasia longana, Hw., Kess.

Spilonota ocellana, Fab., Foxhall. Eucosma fulvana, Ste., Kess.

Endothenia ericetana, Ww., Foxhall; E. antiquana, Hb., at Monks Soham light 25 July. An early Argyroploce urticana, Hb., Icklingham at dusk 7 June. Several Pammene regiana, ZI., on Southwold garden Syringa flowers 11 July. Laspeyresia dorsana, Fab., sitting on dead post by a rill at Barking Wood 18 May ; confirmed for Suffolk (Memoir 1937, p. 163) on Oak-trunks Blythbro Wood 8 May 1938 (Btn); common at light Wangford Wood 12 May 1938 ; on Ash-trunk Scalesbrook Wood in Holton 25 May 1941 ; Shipmeadow marshes 8 June 1941. One Gelechia figulellay Stg., under Chenopodium on Southwold denes by Buss Creek 18 July. Mompha ochraceella, Ct., in utmost profus'on at light in N. Cove marshes 26 June. Depressaria purpurea, Hw., was on M S . museum window 23 Aug. Dasycera sulphurella, Fab., Monks Soham window 3 June. One Gracilaria auriguttella, St., at Foxhall light 16 August; G. syringella, Aying in dozens round Privet in Southwold chyd an hour before dusk 17 July.—W. R A I T - S M I T H .

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T H R E E W A L D R I N G F I E L D M I C R O L E P I D O P T E R A . — T h i s year m y garden gave me two species I had never taken here before : Pyrausta aurata, Scp., which is rather local and u n c o m m o n [it has recently occurred to us at Raydon Wood and W i s s e t t ; we have f o u n d it at Shapwick in Somerset, Bakewell in Derby and, in j u l y 1935, it abounded at Dovedale in Staffs.—ED.] and the T o r t i i x Lathronympha hypericana, H b , a common thing among H . p e r f o r a t u m yet never seen in all the years I have collected here. Also Endotricha flammealis, Schf., turned up, after a very long interval.— (CANON) A . P . WALLER ; 10 N o v .

1947.

Alucita galactodactyla, HBN.—The distribution, though not frequencv, of this P l u m e is m u c h understated in our M o t h M e m o i r 1937, p. 134, where it is instanced as being f o u n d atonly D o d n a s h , G l e m h a m , T i m w o r t h and west T u d d e n h a m . I t is very m u c h more general than hitherto suspected, or occurred in peculiar plenty this spring, for the green larvae with albescent dorsal doublestripe were conspicuous upon the broad leaves of Arctium lappa which they devoured in innumerable subcircular holes, making t h e m look like cullenders ; the holes were outlined by white down of the Burdock, rolled back along the edges. T h o u g h not especially sought, plants thus attacked were noted everywhere t h r o u g h o u t m i d - M a y : on the outskirts of woods at Raydon, Bentley, Barking and, for first time, in m y own M o n k s S o h a m garden. Norfolk, where Canon Cruttwell took it at Croxton, is said to end its north-east ränge in Britain ; I have it f r o m H o r n i n g , Wicken, Chattenden, Folkestone, I.W., N . F . , Cranborne a n d b r e d it in 1 9 3 1 in t h e C o t s w o l d s . — C L A U D E

MORLEY.

G E N I A L A U T U M N . — T h e final feature of 1947 was its unusually open a u t u m n , with no considerable frost tili 16 November. A capital example of such unusual balminess comes f r o m the Leiston district of our c o a s t : — I caught in my hands a single Colias Hyale at Sizewell on 14 September ; and was shown a fully fed Acherontia Atropos larva at T h o r p e n e s s eleven days later. N o less than eight Butterfly-species were Aying on 24()ct >ber: Brassicae, rapae, urticae, cardui, Alaegera, Io, Atalanta and Edusa, of which the last three persisted tili respectively the 8th, 6th and 5th November, on which last day one Macroglossa stellatarum was f o u n d i n a s h e d , a second at Beccles on 4th, and others had been on the wing at the end of October. T h e last Swallow and first Hooded Crow were observed on 4 November. ( D R . ) D . G . G A R N E T T ; 19 N o v . — A Clouded Yellow was seen, settled on a weed only six feet away f r o m m e , at 1.30 on 5 N o v e m b e r in m y orchard at Framlingham.- M r .

W . F. SLY, in Local Paper, 19 N o v . — I imagine I have seen the last E d u s a of the year : a half-dozen were Aying in the warm corner of a field at Waldringfield on 23 Oct. M e m b e r Peecock teils m e he saw a single Hyale at P a r h a m o n 17 Sept. and confirmed it by those in m y collection. C A N O N W A L L E R ; 10 N o v . —

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145

A rather tattered Colias edusa, var. Heiice, occurred on a housewall in Stowmarket on 9 November, a peculiarly late date.

W A L T E R G . T H U R L O W ; 1 3 Nov.—We noted several Hyale at Bosmere this year ; several Edusa there and singly at Cotton, Creeting, Stowmarket and, worn, at Coddenham up to 5 Oct. ; and two of the var. Heiice at Bosmere, where Mr. Platten also took a couple. J. & G. BURTON ; Nov.—A possibly immigrant Ferrugalis, Hb., came to light in my house, close to the sea in Lowestoft on 7 November, where I am still hoping for Unionalis, Hb. (Trans, iii, 294). J I M BURTON ; 8 Nov.—As late as 23 November Acrolepia pygmceana, Haw. and the beetle Homalium concinnum, Msh., were on Monks Soham windows at 3 p.m., with flies Drosophila confusa, Stseg. and many Astia amoena, Mg.—ED. BELATED BEE RECORDS.—The last visit paid to Barton Mills, where I collected Hymenoptera so often when up at Cambridge in 1899, was in August 1907. lipon that occasion I caught Macropis labiata [cf. Trans, iv., 275—ED.], just outside the Bull Hotel, where Cilissa leporina and C. hcemorrhoidalis [I.e. iii, 135] occurred together : was then doing some fishing and no serious collecting.

This year, owtng to lack of all summer weather last, there are almost no Aculeates in Devon : during 1943-5 Bombus jfonellus was profuse over the moorland here, last year it failed to nest at all, this one I have not seen an individual. I am now past my eightieth year, after many of very hard and much rough biologic work in the Sandwich Islands 1902-13.—DR. R . C. L . PERKINS, F.R.S., Downside, Vale Down, Lydford, Devon ; 15 Sept. 1947.

A L O C A L BEE NEAR LOWESTOFT.—It was a great pleasure to meet my old New Forest friend, Panurgus ursinus, Gmel., who there lives in no less than ten different spots between 22 June and 14 August, on the top of Corton Cliff last 2 July. It is not rare along the whole of England south of the Thames, though extremely local to the north of it, whence I remember records from only Wales, Warwick and Norfolk, with an outpost at Doncaster. In Suffolk, Kirby says in 1802 ' a me nunquam lecta ' and it was first noted, sometimes common on Dandelion, at Lound shortly before 1834 bv the Pagets. Fred. Smith vaguely says that in 1858 it occurred * near Lowestoft', doubtless really here upon Corton Cliff. And, after another long interval, Piffard turned it up in abundance during August 1896 at Nacton, where Sheppard had often collected a Century earlier. Finally, about 1912 Col. Nurse saw a few males at Tuddenham Mary. I have searched all these places, but never saw this hairy coal-black Bee outside the New Forest tili now, when both sexes were lying upon their sides, in its characteristic attitude, on tall flowers of Hieraceum pilosella, its exclusive plant in my experience and the one most often growing near their colonies of burrows into an always sandy soil, which were especiaiiy noticeable at Mark Ash in 1907.—CLAUDE M O R L E Y .

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OBSERVATIONS

OTHER A L C U L E A T E S . — A m m o p h i l a sabulosa has been unusually numerous at Sizewell denes, in Dunwich woods and on Herringfleet Hills. M R S . LINGWOOD in her Martlesham garden saw one darting in and out of its hole at terrific speed, each time bringing out sand or a small stone and each time, as it dropped them beside the hole, ' it said " Phiz " which I imagine is Fossorish for Voila ! ' Finally one was heaping up stones and sticks over its completed hole (cp. Trans, v, 228). The Bees Megachile centuncularis, L., were common at flowers on Corton Cliff 2 July ; and Anthidium manicatum, L., abundant close to Southwold churchyard at Lamium purpureum during 12-20 July. But the exceptionally hot summer showed far less Aculeates than one would expect; and a single Hedychrum rutilans, Dahl., was the sole Chrysid on Bentley Wood Heracleum flowers on 5 July (loc. cit.

119).—"Three Ho/nets Vespa Crabro, L., have been attracted to motor-car lights at Bentley Woods and Kesgrave during the first wcek of October 1946. Is this usual ? " GEOFFREY BURTON. Certainly not (cf. loc. cit. page xcii). They have been very scarce in Suflolk this year ; but Mrs. Welford has sent us two that flew in to ground-floor and upper lighted windows of her Bromeswell house at 9.45 & 10.25 on 11 Sept. ; and T h e Times of 9 Sept. records Col. D. K. Wolfe-Murray's Observation of Hornets ' daily ' carrying off Vanessa urticce from the Buddleia flowers of his Hertford garden. Vespa vulgaris became too common in Suffolk in early August, but has not been so in other south English counties.—ED. WASPS AT ELM-DISEASE.—A small Elm-tree in my orchard here is dying of Elm-disease, and is now covered with Wasps, Vespa vulgaris, and a good many Hornets, V. Crabro, of which I see the latter killing the former. At this tree and a Pear-tree a hundred yards away are scores of Red Admiral Butterflies, more than ever seen here before. T h e Wasps have exterminated the Cabbage Whites' larvae on Cabbages, and kept down the number of Diptera (W. G. MUNNINGS, T h e Rookery, Weybread, 17 Sept.).

A SCORE OF I C H N E U M O N S . — T h e following species, taken by me during the last three years and named by our Hon. Secretary, seem worthy of record for their localities. Ichneumon A-albatus 2 in Suffolk 1947 (NEW to Suffolk) ; Amblyteles palliatorius and a $ A. monitorius, of which Dr. Day also took one near Dorchester, at Lulworth : all Doiset records are in July 1947.

Melanichneumon dumeticola, Swanage with Microcryptus rufipes.

Cratocryptus parvulus occurred at Frostenden ; Acanthocryptus spinosus and Glyphicnemis senilis on Angelica flowers in Thorndon Fen in October ; Hemiteles fulvipes at Lowestoft in May ; AriIranis carnifex several bred from Blythburgh Wood Nonagria sp. in Aug. and cocoons of Senta maritima in April: Cryptus tarsoleucus taken at Lowestoft and Swanage. Ephialtes tuberculatus, Frc., in Bentley Woods in June and one carbonarius flew on to

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147

barked part of old willow in Thelnetham Fen, 17 Aug. 1947 ; another $ of Pimpla Burtoni (Trans, v, 201) turned up in Blythburgh marshes Aug. 1947 ; P. inanis at Fritton and P. brevicornis near Lowestoft. Xylonomus pilicornis, Gr., Belstead 8 June 1946.

Campoplex tenuis was bred at Heveningham from its own brovvn cocoon on 12 April 1946 ; and both sexes of Phobocampa crassiuscula from the New Forest during 9 iv-1 v 1946, out of their own oval cocoons that are purple with one broad whitish cincture, ex Monima gracilis.

Meloboris crassicornis $ at Barking light so late as 4 Nov. 1945 ; Labrorychus tenuicornis New Forest 14 July 1947 ; Agrypon canaliculatum bred ex NF. Eupithecia pulchellata 25 iv 1946 ; Ophion scutellaris at Aviemore 19 v 1946 and O. stigmaticus, Morl., Aying over heather at dusk on Walberswick Heath 4 x 1947.

— P . J. BURTON, Lowestoft.

A SUFFOLK BRACONID.—Enclosed is a Braconidas that emerged from a Lepidopterous pupa I found at Beyton in SufFolk on 2 Sept.

1940. Will you kindly inform me of its name ? I was reminded of it by the abundance of those attacking White Butterflies' lan ae in our garden here this year.—JOHN L . GILBERT, Wansford, near Peterborough ; 5 Sept. 1947. [The former is much broken, but appears to be a $ Apanteles spurius, Wsm. (Trans, iii, 239) ; the latter is the usual A. glomeratus, L., doubtless.—ED.] DIRECT PARASITISM.—The two enclosed larvse of Smerinthus populi were found by me at Shelford Parva in Cambs on 19 September. One, with the more advanced disease [showing many nigrescent and suppurating punctures of probably the Braconid Apanteles d i f f i c i l i s , Nees], was being attended by two workers of Vespa vulgaris, which did not attempt to sting it in spite of its movements, but apparently were feeding upon the material extruded through the skin lesions : I have not previously witnessed this incident, though perhaps common enough. I well remember, about 1931, that a suspended Vanessa Urtica chrysalis was violently oscillating, pretty surely in consequence of the knowledge that a large Ichneumon [?/. extensorius, L., known to attack this Butterfly —Ed.], which I could plainly see, was within six inches of i t : by what sense could it be conscious of the t a c t ; and do pupae often have the eggs of such a parasite placed in them ?—DR. W . F. BUCKLE ; 20 Sept.

T h e former question is too subtle for us, it smacks of entomological telepathy ; the latter but very vaguely known, because it is enough for the Lepidopterist that he bred a parasite from a known host, without reference to the stage at which that host was attacked.—ED. DIPTERA IN 1947.—It has been the most disappointing season I have ever known for thirty years : a few common species like Rhingia campestris, Empis tessellata and some of the frequent Eristalids have been abundant, but other usually ubiquitous kinds were very scarce or absent, with no good ones at all. Nothing at flowers, or on tree-trunks, or by sweeping. Examples are only

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OBSERVATIONS

two specimens of Conops, and on Echinomyia fera ; I saw a very few of the prevalent Syrphids, but scores of species I expeeted to find were just not there. On the other hand, I have not seen so many specimens and species of Butterflies for a very long time, states MR. H. W. ANDREWS, who has now moved to 3 Swaynes Close in Salisbury ; and what he says of Wilts is no less true of Suffolk, more especially up to mid-June.

TIPULID/E IN 1947.—The hot and dry season seemed curiously unfavourable to Crane-flies and little unusual was observed.

Paies maculata, Mg., abounded at Raydon Wood in mid-May ; of P. scurra, Mg., a solitary came to Moth-light by Foxhall Hall at 11 p.m. on 16 August; andP. quadrifaria, Mg., was on a Southwold wall on 11 July. Tipula rufina, Stg., turned up, three weeks late, and was profuse at St. Austeil in Cornwall about 17 May, withLimonia chorea, Mg., andErioptera tcenionota, Mg. ; also here Padisca immaculata, Mg., was out and Cheilotrichia einerascens, Mg., Mg., rose in clouds from herbage. A female Tipula scripta, Mg., sat on Monks Soham wall 18 June and one of T. obsoleta, Mg., outside the museum there so late as 10 a.m. on 16 November 1946 (Mly). T. unca, Wied., abounded at midnight light in North Cove marshes, 26 June last; T. marmorata, Mg., appeared only and rarely at Sizewell sea-denes on 27 Sept. (Btn); and on 3 July T. oleracea, L., were in cop. amid a bevy of no less than four other males at dusk on Kessingland sandhills. Limonia tripunetata, F., sat on Monks Soham wall 20 June ; and L. sericata, Mg., flew in Raydon Wood 17 May. Limnophila dispar, Mg., came to N. Cove night light in late June ; L. lineola, Mg., sat in Monks Soham paddock on 6 August; and Erioptera flavescens, L., flew in to light there on 2 June. E. stictica, Mg., was very common, both on house-windows and under clods on the beach, at Southwold in early O c t o b e r 1946.—(DR.) MELVILLE HOCKEN.

A HABIT OF Tipula vernalis, MG.—It was most curious to watch an endless succession of this Daddy-longlegs come rolling along upon the asphalt surface of a road in Monks Soham at 8.30 a.m. on 26 May last. They were impelled northwards by a stiff and hot southerly breeze that swept uphill and carried before it these Crane-flies, which appeared to maintain an erect position by keeping all their legs at füll Stretch horizontally. They looked as though rolling over and over, like an Anastatica (Trans, iii, p. clxv ; for which cf. also Country Side Mag. 17 iii 1906, p. 245), as they passed by ; but that I consider illusory, for a lull in the blast always showed them resting upon their feet.

Limonia nubeculosa, MG., AT REST.—I was astonished to find that this Tipulid (Trans, v, 190) is able to support its perpendicular weight solely by means of its intermediate legs when they are spread at exactly right-angles to the thorax. A $ was sitting thus on the plaster of an outhouse wall at 9 p.m. on 1 June last, and afforded me a close examination in torch-light, which conclusively

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149'

proved none of the front or hind legs to be touching the fulcrum at all. Just an inch above her a second $ was resting, equally alertly high upon her legs, but in this case the right intermediate leg alone clung, along with both front and back ones on the left, the left middle one being held high. Both whisked away the moment the light was diverted.

T H R E E L O C A L FLIES.—Among a good many common species, I netted a specimen of the bracktsh-marsh Stratiomys furcata, Fab., at Southwold in June last (F. C . STANLEY). And the allied Odontomyia ornata, Mg., was sitting beside my Monks Soham moat on 16 June. The exclusively coastal Hoverer Eristalis ceneus Scop., was noticed on the steps of" the now empty Grand Hotel in Southwold on 15 July, seen on Easton Broad beach the next day, and again on Sizewell denes on 7 September.—CLAUDE M O R L E Y .

T w o RARE DIPTERA.—Our Hon. Secretary has kind'y named two spec'es that have been taken only once before in Suffolk. Mr. X. F. King records Piatypesa rufa, Mg., from ' Orford ' in 1905 (Trans. Nori. Nat. Soc. 1915) ; of thie a single female occurred to me, Aying with several more about willow-leaves in our garden at Chilton Avenue in Stowmarket, one afternoon early in September 1946. One example of Myiolepta luteola, Gmel., was captured

by Mr. Morley at Monks Soham in July 1943 (Trans. SNS. v, 116); and six miles further east I took a couple in Framlingham during July 1946.—ALASDAIR E. A S T O N ; 19 April 1947.

T H E S E C O N D G O L D E N HOVERER (Trans, v, 14).—Punctually on each of the four Septembers since the unique British specimen of Callicera Spinolce, Rond., was captured at Angelica flower there on lOth in 1942 have the Brandeston marshes been worked for more, always fruitlessly tili one's heart grew sick. Then arose the hot and sunny morning of 1 Ith September 1947 with a stiff south-sou'-west breeze blowing, across corn-fields that had been shorn a fortnight before, upon my garden at Monks Soham; on high and arid ground just miles direct from Brandeston marshes.

Ivy blossomed over the garage as early as the end of August, but that forming the porte cochere over the south front-door was but now Coming to füll bloom; and, as usual, my eye searched it at 10.45 for any notable Insect-visitants. Something glittered in the sun as no Wasp does ; and I, knowing the disconcerting effect of the human eye, gave it no second glance, but fetched a net.

Just as he rose, I Struck and directly consigned him to the Cyanide pot. In two minutes there he lay : Spinolce ii! He had been on the most fully blown Ivy-flower, at six feet high, of a twelve-feet Ivy-facade and the temperature stood 73° in the shade. An armchair was set in the drive, whence I kept watch and ward upon that Ivy tili the sun deserted it at 1 p.m. when the glass rose to 78°, and later upon the garage Ivy. Again my capture was a solitaire, among a crawling crowd of Bombi, Honey Bees, Odyneri, Social Wasps, Athaliae, Cratichneumones, Acanthocrypti, Phoras,

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Myiatropae, Xylotae, Asciae, Syrphi, Helophili, Eristales, Micropalpus vulpinus up to 1 October, Sarcophagae, Blue-bottles, Lucilias, Graphomyiae, Polleniae, Morelliae, Mesembrinae, Ophyrae, Sepedon spinipes et hoc . . .

R A R E H O V E R E R - F L Y AT D U N W I C H . — A s it was hovering at, perhaps sucking, flowers of Honeysuckle on an ancient Hawthorn, that divided the heathland from marsh of Rookyard Wood, recently felled by troops, in Dunwich I netted a Syrphid, stränge to me, at 3.30 p.m. on 28 June last. It proved to be my first $ of Xanthandrus comtus, Harr., <$<$ of which I possess from Norwich on 9 Sept. 1936 (also found at Hunstanton in 1901—Andrews) and hovering in the shade of a large Beech-tree at Boldre Wood in New Forest on 2 July 1940. These dates show it less autumnal than Verrall thought. Our earlier records are merely : Copdock 1901 (Hocking); Sudbury garden Aug. 1930 (Harwood, Trans, ii, 43). Its larva subsists on live caterpillars of Haslula Hyirana and other Mothä. It is a scarce species, knawn from three so ithern counties, Hereford and Ireland.

I N T U I T I O N ?—The shade temperature was 81°, the sun torrid, and every Insect at his füll activity. A bustling Honey Bee was extracting sweets from a Hard-head flower (Centaurea nigra), just inches from a second such flower, among the tall herbage of my Monks Soham paddock at 3 p.m. on 26 July last. At that exact time I saw a female of the Fly Trypeta ruficauda, Fab., hurriedly Walking with waving wings oif the second flower and then up the stem of a connected Hawthorn twig towards the Bee. Hardly had she vacated the second flower when the Apis mellifica, L., hurtled •on to it, ransacked it thoroughly, and flew away. Immediately he was gone the Trypetid walked leisurely back to it and resumed her monarch-of-all-I-survey pose thereupon or thereunder. That she knew the Bee would visit her throne, and so abandoned it pro tem. in good time,.was quite obvious : but how ?

RESURGAT !—As long ago as 10 June 1897 a single example of the pretty Trypetid fly Gonyglossum (Crellia) Wiedemanni, Mg., was taken by me on flower in a Blakenham Parva chalk-pit ( E M M 1897, p. 266). Upon the occasion of his annual ' Supper ' at the Holborn Restaurant, Verrall told me the following January that he had but once met with the species, and then in some numbers, on flowers of Red Bryony at Newmarket. Later, Col. Nurse records it from Timworth in June 1913. But, for just a halfcentury, I have neglected no opportunity of examining for it Bryonia dioica, Jac. : quite fruitlessly tili 18 July 1947, when a second and very sluggish female occurred to me on it in the Grand Hotel garden at Southwold.

H o w T R Y P E T I D F L I E S H I B E R N A T E . — A £ of Tephritis conura, Low, was sitting upon the outside of a ground-floor east window of Monks Soham House at 9 a.m. on 5 December 1943, with frost

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on the lawn. It was kept unfed in a two-inch glass-topped cardboard box, placed in an unheated corridor indoors, and examined daily. Its position was never unaltered two days running ; and so lively it was on the warm 27 January 1944 that it flew about inside the box. T h e succeeding frost of February had no apparent effect upon its energy ; hence I was surprised to find it dead at 9 a.m. on 18 March, which was an exceptionally warm morning.

T h e same kind has occurred to me on Reeds at Southwold 14 Sept.

1907, and in this garden 19 Oct. 1905. It is the species with a clear space on both sides of the inner cross-vein, distinct from the common T. vespertina, Low, so often beaten from Coniferas during winter. The above facts go to show there to be no torpidity caused by low temperature in this genus.

T H E L I F E OF Toxoneura muliebus, HARR.—This curious ' aeroplane-winged ' Lonchaeid (termed a Pallopterid nowadays) has occurred at Glemham Magna (ßloomfield), Orford (King) and occasionally round Bury (Tuck). I have swept only one, at Bramford from Iris pseudacoris in July 1897, away from Monks Soham. But here it annually abounds both in- and out-side my west house-windows, sometimes a half-dozen at once, from 2 June though usually first seen in mid-July to 18 October. I, well remember dear old Adams' elation upon finding one on a Pall Mall dining-table ( E M M . 1899, 14) and have another from Reigate in 1906 that was given by Tonge to Dr. T . A. Chapman. Moses Harris' ancient tome of 1782 gives an unmistakable figure of the 5 at pl. xxi, f. 9, coloured ' a pleasant pale brown, wings clear having two broadish stripes from apex to Shoulder. . . Very scarce : it shakes its wings as it walks, and is not soon frightened away ' ; in fact, it entirely ignores anybody's presence or proximity.

Now, under my ground-floor windows, open throughout summer, grows in 1947 and has grown since 1904 a sturdy root of Woody Nightshade, whose leaves are constantly being nibbled by the Fleabeetle Longitarsus suturellus, Duft, (never recorded from this pabulum, I fancy), also plentiful on the windows, though Pria dulcamarce, Scp., never occurs (profuse as it is at Foxhall on Solanum dulcamara, L.). I have so frequently seen here T. muliebris on this plant that I feel assured its ecdysis is passed in some part of it, though what that part may be I have quite failed to discover.

A V E R Y L O C A L SNAIL.—It seems probable that Helix (Ariente) arbustorum, for which so few Suffolk localities are recorded (Trans, iv, 12 ; v, 60), is actually not uncommon along the whole upper valley of the Deben River. At all events many were found after dark among the profuse bed of Petasites officinalis at Glevering Bridge on 7 September last. I will add that, again this year, I found Balea perversa (I.e. iii, 100 & 298) attracted to light in Monks Soham House.—CLAUDE M O R L E Y .

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OBSERVATIONS

MOLLUSCA PARASITISED BY WORM.—Three specimens only, out of about two thousand examined, of the freshwater Snail Succinea putris, L. (Trans, iv, 16) from Wheatfen marshes in Norfolk, are found to be parasitised by what seem to be larvseof TachitiidFlies, which feed inside the living Mollusca and can be seen, lengthening and contracting with a pulsatory action, through the translucent bodies of their hosts. Do you know anything about such larvae ?

I find Imms (Text-book of Entom.) mentions Helicoposca muscaria, Mg., as a Tachinid snail-parasite, and Wainwright H. distinguenda, Vill., as a British fly ; but no account of their larvse is given, and I do not know if other similar creatures be recorded to attack Snails.

So I must try to breed these three to maturity. The above low proportion attacked surely shows the parasite to be rare, whatever it may eventually prove to be.—E. A. ELLIS, Norwich Castle Museum ; 18 August. [M. Villeneuve in 1924 split Meigen's H. muscaria into two species, of which his own H. distinguenda is placed in the subfamily Calliphorinse (i.e. Blue Botties) by Wainwright, who at first knew only three from Cirencester, whence the Revd. A. Thomley kindly gave us a specimen, and Devon (Tr. Ent. Soc. 1928, p. 232), but later he found it by no means rare in a half-dozen British localities : though he nowhere refers to its ecdysis as upon record (üb. cit. 1940, p. 439). Many Insects though no Ichneumons attack Snails, e.g. the Beetle genus Silpha, whereof we took a full-grown larva Qf S. tristis, Iiiig. (t. Blair) on Southwold shingle under spreading Chenopodium album on 18 last July ; Glow-worms, Lampyris noctiluca, L. ; and in their shells Osmia Bees nest. We hope breeding will solve so interesting a problem ; bul the pulsatory motion looks much more like one of the ' Vermes ' to us than any Insect.—ED.] Acting upon your Worms suggestion, I removed a couple of the above parasites from S. putris on 19 August and find that, though looking in situ remarkably like Dipteroüs larvse, they are not truly segmented.

Really they are the Trematode fluke Distomum macrostomum, Rud., which normally is an intestinal worm of Birds. But, in the sporocyst stage of their growth inhabiting S. putris, the Cambs. Nat. Hist. terms them Leucochloridium paradoxum, Carus.—Id. 20 August.

NEWSPAPER ' F I S H '.—Free education, that costs so exorbitantly, seems to have culminated in the ' Lobster and O T H E R Fish ' with which relishes are nowadays labelled. Not satisfied with such ambiguosity, the Molluscan Pearl-Oyster Malleus vulgaris, Lam. (Trans, iii, p. xxviii) is pressed into Pisces. For a London Paper, on 3 September last, relates how Mr. Angliss of Sunderland feit something hard upon his tongue while eating a ' fish paste sandwich ', and found it to be a Pearl as large as an average ringdiamond, from a tin of Fish Paste, whence also his wife discovered ten pin-head Pearls.—Ed.

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153

Conger niger, Cuv., IN OULTON BROAD.—Our local veteran poacher, now in his eighties, manhandled a Conger Eel into his boat on Oulton Broad one day last week. He teils me that it was swimming slowly with its head down in the shallows and, at his first grab, it went into reeds, whence he dragged it aboard, perhaps with the aid of a wire noose. He had cut it up and buried its head by the time I arrived ; and computed its weight at thirty-six pounds, but the harbour-master would allow no more than twentyfive, though populär rumour puts it at sixty (cp. Trans, ii, 122).

I suspect that it came up the inner harbour, Lake Lothing, then through the lock and was knocked off its balance by the decreased salinity of the Broad's water : otherwise I doubt if even this valiant poacher could have manhandled it successfully.—(DR.) REGINALD KEENE ; 1 0 July.

REPTILIA IN SUFFOLK DÜRING 1 9 4 7 . — I was pleased to meet with the Lizard Lacerta vivipara, Wagl., both in Rookyard Wood at Dunwich on 28 June, and beside the just-felled, hollow Black Poplar trees at the pumping-station in Southwold marshes on 6 and 18 July. It persists (cf. Trans, ii, 212) in Bentley Woods, where I saw examples on 1 6 May 1 9 4 3 & 3 May 1 9 4 7 (CLAUDE MORLEY).—I came across a fine Adder Vipera berus, L., of about twenty inches in length, near Dunwich on 31 August. It is the first I have met with in Suffolk after over a quarter-century's collecting here (P. J. BURTON).

ARRESTED GROWTH OF Rana temporaria, L — I have kept T a d poles for years in order to feed a favourite gold-fish, Carpus auratus, L. and find that they sometimes suffer from arrested development, if maintained in too large a bowl. Usually my stock of them has become exhausted before the end of December, when the final Tadpoles are exactly the same size as when they had first emerged from their frog-spawn. Again, if they be left in running water to attain some extent of growth and then transferred to the fish's. bowl, they develope no further but continue at this larger size, despite whatever bread &c they may consume.—I see I joined the Society the year after it was born, and do congratulate it upon steady and most useful progress—(MRS.) MARGERY EVERETT,, Hadleigh ; 2 October.

A THOUGHTFUL(P) ROOK.—What is known about Birds changing their minds ? Yesterday morning while I was dressing I saw a Corvus frugilegus, L., Aying from an adjacent rookery, pass very high in the direction the colony usually takes when going to their feeding-ground ; but now he turned a little more than at right angles and flew away in quite a different direction. What induced him to do so ? If he had returned to the rookery, I should have supposed him to have forgotten something. This apparently causeless volte-face, however, set me wondering whether Birds. do think logically from cause to effect and, consequently, sometimes alter their minds—A. HAROLD SADD, Westerfeld ; 28 July.

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A FLOCK OF Plectrophenax nivalis, L.—About a dozen Snow Buntings are reported to have been observed upon brambles near Butley on 7 February by Mr. Bird who adds, upon reliable data, that a Fox was seen crossing the Ken stream at Foxhall, carrying a Moorhen in its mouth. Scolopax rusticola, L., in dire straits for food, were flushed about the same date upon the outskirts of Ipswich.—H. R. L I N G W O O D .

W I N T E R WAXWINGS' RESTRICTED RANGE.—Bombycilla garrulus, L., visited Suffolk in probably unprecedented numbers during the winter of 1946-7, and were commonest in the persistent snow of 28 Jan. to 9 March. Their distribution, or that of their recorders, was curiously restricted, i.e. from the Stour at Sudbury and Dedham northwards to only Hitcham and Westhall, with vast preponderance at Ipswich, of which only the roads are here named.

On 30 Nov. 1946 a flock of 30 first appeared at Kelsale (Dr. Garnett), obviously coming south ; 20 Dec. flock of 20 eating rose-hips at Kettleburgh (Turberfield); 22nd seen at Bixley-rd" (Bird) ; 25 Dec. to 8 Jan. 1947, ' flocks several times ' seen at Westhall (Adamson). 4 Jan. 1 solus with call like musical rattle and flight like Starling on ash-tree in meadow at Hitcham (Bull); also in Coteswold-avenue (Bird). 6th, 15-20 eating apples for some hours at Lamb-inn in Dedham, Essex (Freeman); 9th, 8-10 at Bull-lane in Long Melford, but did not stay (Row) ; lOth, 21 at berries of Cotoneaster horizontalis in Valley-rd. garden (Drake) and 15 at Wickham Market (Nesling). ll-12th, 5 at Ivy-berries in Needham Market garden (Platten); 12-13th, seen in Bournepark (Bird). 17th flock of 25 on hawthorn-berries between Brookshall & All SS.-roads (Miss Hurry) and flock of 22 in hawthorn beside Foxhall-road (Major Scott). 19th, 2 hawking like Starlings for flies in Saxmundham (Turberfield) and at 3 p.m. a flock of 52-3 in trees by main road at Kesgrave Hall lodge, eating Cotoneaster-berries, with flight like Starling (Lingwood) and on 20th this flock was noted still on Cotoneasters there (Reeve). 21st, 8 at Broom-hill in Woodbridge (Mrs. E. R. Cooper); 29th, one solus by Colchester-rd (Clarke) and many eating Pyrantha-berries in Warwick-road (Palmer). 3Ist, flock of dozen in Bixley-road (Woodcock). For some 10 days in mid-Jan. a composite flock of •circa 80 was in Leiston (Dr. Garnett: photo in Country Life, 21 March); seen in Jan. at Felixstow (Bird). 1 Feb., 1 solus in Christchurch-st. garden & 3 in Fonnereau-rd. (Harding) ; 5th, 6 beside Colchester-road (Ramsey) and flock of circa 18 eating berries in Tower-st. garden ; still seen in Ipswich on 20th (Lingwood). 18th, 2 for an hour in Elm-st. garden (Turner, &c) ; 23rd, 1 solus on plum-tree in Derwent-rd. garden (described : Miss Quantrill); 5 eating berries in Dales-rd. (Drake); and at Hitcham (Bull). The final observations were of flocks of 4 on 26th and over 20 on 27th Feb. at Lattice-avenue in Ipswich.—EDITOR.

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R I N G E D Turdus viscivorus, L . — A Mistle-thrush has just been found here dead, and I have got the ring that was taken f r o m its leg. T h e marking upon it is as follows :—" M u s e u m — L e i d e n — H o l l a n d . / D . 6 3 0 9 2 . " — ( S I R ) CHARLES BUNBURY (BART.), Rendlesham, near Woodbridge ; 10 February.

BIRD OBSERVATIONS 1 9 4 7 . — T h e first four months of the year will be remembered by Ornithologists as among the most severe and disastrous ones on record. Birds suffered severely, some almost to the point of extinction : those most affected were Wren, Tits, Kingfisher, Moorhen, Bittern, Woodpeckers, Coot, Heron & Bearded Tit. T h e last, which of late years had established themselves upon many of our meres and bioads, has become almost extinct, only one pair recorded as nesting i n S u f f j l k a n d o n e bird left in Norfolk. A Bittern early in the season had been Seen by me within the confines of Ipswich, and was later found dead.

Nevertheless, migrants arrived very much to their scheduled times and in fair numbers, having evidently suffered less than residents. T h e breeding season has been an outstanding one in Suffolk : Spoonbill, Godwit & Green Sandpiper were seen, but no nests recorded. Cuckoo in larger numbers than usual—GEORGE BIRD;

17 O c t .

47.

A PASSING CEnanthe leucorrhoa, G M E L . — T h e Misses Gaymer consider you " may be interested to know that we saw a Greenland Wheatear on 25 May, while watching Stone Curlew on waste ground near Sutton. W e had a very good view through fieldglasses ; it was quite unmistakable on account of its larger size, more upright carriage, darker dorsal grev and buffer underparts than the common Saxicola oenanthe, L., of which none were to be seen in the same area " . T h i s Bird, a passage migrant across Suffolk in spring and autumn, breeds in Greenland and winters in west Africa. H . R. LINGWOOD.—The first common Wi.eatear seen this year appeared at Earls Soham on 8 April. H. C. MURRELL, v.v.—S. torquata, that was nearly exterminated there by frost, has turned up on Aldringham Common after a six rr.onths' absence.

D R . GARNETT, in lit. 7 S e p t .

Phcenicurus Tithys, S C O P . , FAR I N L A N D . — T h e above ladies saw also a male Black Redstart, among ordinary Redstarts, upon the outskirts of a Pine-wood near the same locality. T h e y thought it a rather unusual place for the species, and fairly late in the year for both these passage migrants. T h e former used to be more or less confined to the coast in Suffolk ; b u t recently it has come inland, favouring bombed sites in London, Cambridge, Ipswich and Lowestoft as at Trans, v, 128. H . R. LINGWOOD.—Another male Black Redstart was picked up dead near Culford school on 1 April. M a n y years ago one was obtained in a room of Ickworth Building. M R . FRANK BURRELL in Local Paper.

N I G H T I N G A L E S N O T V O C I F E R O U S . — O n 1 3 April Nightingales arrived at Waldringfield (CANON WALLER).—On 16 April I heard two or three, and saw one, Luscinia megarhyncha, Breh., on the golf-

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OBSERVATIONS

course at Purdis in Nacton (A. H. SADD).-Heard in Monks Soham paddock 2 6 April ( M R S . DORA CHAPMAN) ; at Earls Soham on 2 9 April ( D R . C . G . A U L D ) ; in Bentley Woods on 3 May (BARON DE W O R M S ) ; in Raydon Wood 1 7 , Barking Wood and Coddenham chalk-pit 1 8 May (JIM BURTON) ; but not again at Monks Soham (EDITOR).—The earliest noted is : Nightingale was heard in Aldeburgh during the last week in March. Winter brought no Birds of interest to the Leiston district, but killed much and especially Coots of which I counted over a score on one small area of ice at Scots Hall in Dunwich ; Mute Swans also died, and all the Stonechats are gone. On 18 April, two days after the biggest ' b l o w * from south-west in all Suffolk history (I am assured) and only three days after winter, with ice still floatingon open water and snow-drifts in fields, a lone Sand Martin was hawking at Eastbndge in Theberton, and I saw a pair six days later in Thorpness marshes. Today's SSW. gale brought the first April Swift I can remember. No White Butterflv seen vet — ( D R . ) D . G . GARNETT ; 2 3 April. ' CUCKOOS ARRIVE E A R L Y . — F i r s t was heard at Martlesham at 6.30 a m. on 15 April ( H . R . LINGWOOD), and at Waldringfield on 16th ( C A N O N W A L L E R ) ; but none at Stonham (Miss FOWLER} or Monks Soham tili 26 April.

A GARDEN N I G H T J A R . — I n my Martlesham garden on 9 March (and at Stonham on 25th, Miss FOWLER) I heard Chaffinches and Hedge-sparrows sing in the snow ; Wood-Larks sang little and first time in the six years we have been here, no young appeared!

Willow-wrens were first heard on 31 March, Whitethroat on 26 April, Swallow 29th (24th at Stonham) and on 2 June I heard a Nightjar for first time in my life. Four young Magpies were often here ; their ugly noises were followed by more harsh sounds from three young Red-backed Shrikes, fed by only one parent ( M R S LINGWOOD).

In our Stonham garden were both Spotted and Lesser-spotted Woodpeckers in the spring (Miss FOWLER).

Sitta Europcea, L I N N . , IN A U T U M N . — I was very pleased to see a pair of Nuthatches in my garden here last week.—(The REVD ) W. M. LUMMIS, Bungay Vicarage ; in lit. 22 September.

A POSSIBLE GREATER-SPOTTED EAGLE, Aquila clanga PALL— One day, about the 9th November 1946, I was Walking near Bealings Parva through Bracken that was over four feet high, and lookmg as usual for any interesting Animals. Suddenly a immense Bird got up almost at my feet, taking me completely by surpnse. It flew a few yards, and then went down among the tall cover. I recognised it as something very unusual by the huge size and vast wing-span. Slowly I followed and again flushed it, when I saw the colouring mostly all over was a tawny brown having the wing-tips distinctly black-barred ; the tail certainly was not white. This time it flew towards an Oak-tree, whence a Kestrel Hawk, frequently sitting there, at once came towards it.

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T h e Kestrel'uttered a harsh cry of warning or fear, then made off still crying out. Next two Rooks attacked i t ; but the Bird avoided them with quick manceuvres, rising in circles higher and higher while all the time the Rooks mobbed it. Most fascinatingly the Bird turned and dived like lightning to avoid them, seeming at times to even fly upon its back. Gradually it soared upwards to so great a height that all three of t h e m were lost sight of in t h e brilliantly sunny blue sky. In reply to m y query, the E d i t o r of the ' Field ' considers that " T h i s is quite obviously an Eagle, and almost certainly an immature Golden Eagle. T h e description, however, is not sufficiently complete to say with certainty " . — ( M R S . ) G U Y LEMPRIERE, Heathland, Little Bealings ; 2 6 February.

[A. chryscstus is little given to migration, and utterly no authenticated specimen has ever been recorded in Suffolk. In Britain it is now confined to the higher parts of Scotland, doubtless simply on account of persecution elsewhere ; for it is frequent all round the Mediterranean region, so temperature does not exclude it from E. England. Note that the Spotted Eagle A. clanga, Pall., occurred near the Suffolk coast in both Nov. 1891 and Jan. 1892 : the pale spots on the u p p e r side of this dark brown Bird would be invisible f r o m beneath.—A corollary of the above proposition appears to be a paragraph in the Ipswich local paper on 5 June 1947, appended.—ED.] " A stränge Bird m a d e its home on the Leiston battle-school last s u m m e r and, according to boys, picked u p a terrier-<%.

What may be the same Bird is now attracting attention at the adjacent Leiston aerodrome, where M r . A. Finbow, farming land between the runways, has seen a Bird with very broad wing-span, like a huge grey Seagull, with dark wing-tips. T h e r e he and others have seen it swoop and carry off a Leveret, Rabbits and Partridges.

H e is very certain that it is not one of the Hawks ; it has been suggested that it may be a White [-tailed] Eagle ", Haliaetus albicilla, L i n n .

M r . Finbow told Dr. D. G. Garnett on 20 July last that the Bird's colour was a seagull's pale grey, with half its wings black, addmg that the spotted one was probably the hen. Dr. Garnett himself saw the cock-bird, which he took to be Circus pygargus, L., over Leiston Abbey in the a u t u m n of 1946 ; and says it does so m u c h damage to game, upon one occasion picking up three young Partridges at once, that the farmer would be justified if he shot it.—ED. BIRDS NEAR S O U T H W O L D . — I saw a Marsh Harrier Circus reruginosus, L., at Benacre last April, where the keeper told me of one Bittern Botaurus stellaris, L., having been killed by the winter's severe frost and another incapacitated, which he took home, fed upon raw flesh and so restored to health, and liberated. Also my son and I got within five yards of a Hoopoe Upupa epops, L., close to m y house on Southwold Common one day in April 1 9 4 6 . — M R S . HELEN M . STANSFELD ; v.v. 8 July 1 9 4 7 .

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O N M I G R A T I O N ?—On 30 Sept. an injured Corncrake, Cr ex pratensis, was picked u p in N e w b o u r n ; it was a juvenile male, and I have presented it to the Ipswich M u s e u m . It may have been bred locally or on its way out, in the a u t u m n migration.— LESLIE

DOW.

D ü r i n g the recent snowy weather, persisting from 28 Jan. to well into March, a Barndoor Owl was picked u p in a very emaciated condition in the garden, and a Little Owl flew to my window, at Buxhall Rectory. Some years ago my brother and I watched a Hen Harrier at Minsmere in Dunwich ; its mate was captured at Glemham, and eventually set at liberty.—H. C O P I N G E R - H I L L • 5 March 1947.

W H E R E Colymbus arcticus, L., CAME TO EARTH.—On the 9 February last I found what I think a Black-throated Diver which, judging f r o m marks in the snow on my lawn, had crash-landed there and been unable to take-off again. M y wife and I carried it into the house, put it into a large basket beside the hot-pipes, cleaned an oil deposit from its breast feathers and, as it was quite easy to handle, I made a careful examination. T h e n c e I came to the conclusion that it was an immature bird and, therefore, difficult to distinguish between the Great-northern and Black-throated Divers though favouring the l a t t e r ; for there was a distinct dark patch on its breast extending part-way up the throat and over the wings on its back were small round white markings on a black background, b u t the rest of the back was black with slight irridescent sheen. As we could find nothing amiss, after lunch we took it down to the Deben River and let it go. While it played about quite happily, I noticed one peculiarity was that its colour u n d e r water seemed to become almost a pale phosphorescent green, as it swam away f r o m me, which is a refracted light that I have observed in tropical seas, but never before in England. Its appearance on m y lawn I expect due to exhaustion in icy wind. N o w I hope it is all right, and will not be shot by some idiot with a gun just because it is something bizarre.—(SIR) CHARLES B U N B U R Y "(BART.), N a u n t o n Hall, Rendlesham ; 10 February.

S A D F A T E OF Streptopelia turtur, L . — U p o n seeing a great commotion among a dozen Rooks on a field in Ken ton, I pulled up m y car in the road and sat watching it on 14 May last, to see what might happen. At once I observed that they were all attacking a m u c h smaller, pale Bird that at first I guessed to be a Jay. It circled upward as fast as it could, in an attempt to evade their rushes.

But gradually more and more of the adjacent Rooks joined in its pursuit tili fully fifty were converging on the luckless quarry. Presently it feil to the ground, when I saw one of the aggressors deliberately tear out and consume the crop with its contents. T h e n I walked over the field to it, and found a still quivering but practically dead Turtle Dove with both its eyes pecked

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159

out, which I took to our Hon. Secretary.—EDWARD ROSE, S u d d o n Hall, K e n t o n . [ S t e t ! Such an incident is most unusual, and I cannot recall having read of a similar one.—F. C. C.] ESTUARINE Charairiidce.—It seems of sufficient interest to record that on the Deben River I observed Greenshank, Common Sandpipers, Curlew, Oyster-catchers and Turnstone on 1 August last.

And that a r j Great G r e y Shrike Lanius excubitor, L., was seen on Waldringfield Heath by M e m b e r Robson and me on 2 Nov. —STANLEY C .

PORTER.

Candidus, B O N . (cf. T r a n s , v, 244).—A solitary specimen of the Black-winged Stilt was observed to be standing on the m u d of the River Alde's east bank adjoining the Lantern Marshes at 5 p.m. on 2 Augast last. It was identified with no hesitation by M r . J. W . Cable of 70 Lee-road in Aldeburgh then in charge of a motor launch conveying a party, including m y sister-in-law M r s . Wainwright of 42 S a x m u n d h a m - r o a d in Aldeburgh, who kindly sends the record.—FFLOYD M . PEACOCK ; 22 Aug. [Only nine examples of this vagrant visitor to the east and south English coasts were known in Suffolk before 1945.— ANOTHER

Himantopus

ED.] G L E M S F O R D S W A N S & BRECKLAND.—There is a whole chain of ponds and meres, some amounting to small lakes, along the Stour valley here, the result of extensive Gravel excavations. T h e older ones are already well provided with Willows and Rushes ; b u t most disappointingly deficient in Bird-life. Perhaps, as Vegetation increases, Birds will gradually be attracted : it will be interesting to observe if this be the case. Swans are already breeding wild there.—I am greatly disappointed to see how terribly BRECKLAND has been spoiled of late years. Afforestation, aerodrome, &c, seem designed on purpose to cut u p the whole area into fragments, instead of p'anning t h e m so as to leave an adequate contiguous area for a Nature Reserve, as should have been done ; b u t I fear the opportunity has now been lost.—A. C. C. HERVEY, Brook House, Glemsford ; 28 Sept.

[Vigorous protest by the Suffolk, Norfolk & other EAnglian Naturalists' Societies was utterly ignored by Govt. in this cherished Steppe Region. Heu ! — E D . ]

T h e little Penguin, that was found upon the Bawdsey shore o n 17 July last, was an escape f r o m captivity, of course. T h e s e Birds are confined to the southern Hemisphere, though by n o means to the antarctic ice as is so generally supposed.

A PERT MOUSE.—Something very dark moved upon the top of a tin c a m p washing-stand, that is kept in a plastered brick outhouse, for gardening ablutions. I thrust my oil-lamp above it and discovered it to be a jolly little f u r r y Mouse, gazing upwards at m e with entirely untimorous eyes : not a whit disturbed by so sudden and great a luminance at 9 p.m. on the dark night of 10' April last, with temp. at 48°. Because light revealed evil deeds, however, he withdrew those peculiarly black eyes, and leisurely

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proceeded to shuffle down the three feet of tin corner-post to the concrete floor. There that Mouse had the nous to take two sides of the outhouse, rather than the direct one, and so pass, close to the wall-base behind me, still quite leisurely, out through the doorless entrance to the garden beyond. What attraction an enamelled and utterly bare stand can have offered is obscure, especially as its surface afforded no foothold. Interest centred upon the initial pause, giving me time to recognise his four-inches body, four-inches tail, the snout and most unusually dark, subnigrescent and quite unglossy für. So dark was the last that I am sure he was the black-tipped, hiemal form intermedius (Proc. Zoo. Soc., April 1900) of the Long-tailed Field Mouse, Apodemus sylvaticus, L. (Trans, ii, 17).—CLAUDE M O R L E Y , Monks Soham.

TAUTOLOGICAL Rattus Norvegicus, BORK.—A Grey Rat, caught at Glebe-farm in Bucklesham, has been presented to Ipswich Museum by Mr. Crapnell there. It is a female with three hind legs. The pelvis shows the development of an extra limb and also an extra ilium, which is of very unusual accurrence.

—FRANCIS SIMPSON;'18 N o v .

1947.

a mass of archaeological jots in an old note-book of mine, I have disinterred the following Observations.

Hung up at Brick-kiln farm on Palmers Heath in Brandon were several Rooks, ajay, two Kestrels, one Merlin, two Sparrow-hawks, a Short-eared Owl, two Little Ozols, with several Brozvn Rats, Stoats, Weasels and Hedgehogs, on 28 June 1921. Four or five Hedgehogs were suspended in a wood at Denham near Hoxne on 14 of of the next month ; and another at Barton Mills on 11 August following. Later that year a Little Owl and some thirty Hedgehogs were on keepers' trees in Staverton Thicks at Butley ; and more hedgehogs in Shrubland Park. The Birds were identified by the late Mr. ehester Doughty.—CLAUDE M O R L E Y .

R E D SQUIRRELS persist in some strength at Shrubland Park ; a specimen was encountered in its vicinity on -15 of last July upon the main road to Norwich.

T O U C H I N G THE S O U T H SUFFOLK B A D G E R S . — I am told that a specimen of Meies taxus, Bod., was found on the Kentwell Hall estate in Long Melford early in this month and, OF COURSE, killed.

CHARLES H. R O W , in lit. 2 5 Feb. 1 9 4 7 . — M r . Harris, to whom the annual three pounds has been paid by our Hon. Treasurer for preserving them to the Society's behoof (ever since Trans, ii, 199), reported on 10 December 1946 that our Badgers at Wissington were then " alive and well in their earth ", trusting apparently to difficulties of travel to avert supervision. For a local Member knows that earth to be eradicated ; and, we are delighted to hear, of another colony of equal strength, a few miles away from its erstwhile site.

Hence Mr. Harris gets no more cash.—EDITOR. SEALS, AND KENYA.—Some slight confusion between the Common Seal Phoca vetulina, L., and the Grey Seal Halicheerus KEEPERS' TREES.—Among

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161

gryphus, F . (of Trans, ii, 29), seems to have crept into page xxii supra. T h e former are about five feet in length and certainly numerous in the Wash, for that is where they are best known in all England. F a r from needing rocks, they want sand upon which to ' haul o u t ' and one's best Observation place is at the banks exposed at ebb-tide off Blakeney Point. T h e y have no established ' rookeries ' for breeding ; but are believed to produce young, and possibly cohabit, pelagically as do the Cetaceans. Some whitish shade, often blotched, is a common form (supra p. 79) of this species. On the contrary, Grey Seals establish rookeries for breeding and are very numerous sporadically from Cornwall, where alone they inhabit sea-caverns, to the Outer Hebrides : Suffolk's Breydon Water record still seems to remain unique. What sound the Common Seal makes I know n o t ; the Grey one Utters a weird mooing noise, which I was never able to hear among the many I saw during the 1939 war, probably because I came at no rookery.

Marine Mammals I consider the most fascinating of Animals ; they render me nostalgic, even among the magnificent fauna of this Olorgesailie Prehistoric site at the Coryndon Museum, Box 658 Nairobi in Kenya Colony.

At the moment there is little animal life, because we are nearing the end of the dry season, and all the grass is withered. A Giraffe found a weak spot in our thorn-boma, lifted his legs over the fivestrand wire, and marched all over the Compound while I and the natives s l e p t ; but the sole damage was to chicken-wire round some excavations. T h e next night a Rhinoceros, in the vicinity for two months, somehow traversed our fences, just walked up to my hut and then back. I could not find where he got in : but, after trailing him a long way, I obtained a very clear view as he crossed a road between two stretches of dense bush on his way to water, while I was sitting on a stone 150 yards down wind.

Fhere, too, is a deserted road-hut that is used by Lions as a daytime harbour, and on the roof of which I once noticed & Leopard crouching. No chance of catching you any Beetles yet : all too dry.

I very much enjoyed the current ' Transactions ' out here in the African vvilds ; but can hardly imagine M r . M . without Mrs. M . as well!â&#x20AC;&#x201D;HENRY ANDREWS ; by A'r Mail, 22 September 1947.

Ptilophora plumigera has become profuse. T h e late Ernest Bedwell maintained that no indigenous Insect is rare, given the time and the place and the man : of the habits of some we are ignorant, and consequently do not know where to look for them.

At long last, 1938 (Trans, iv, p. xlvi) to 1947, this axiom applies to Plumigera ; foi, on 8 November, it was really abundant at light in Barking Wood, after being singly taken by Members John and Geoffrey Burton in five surrounding villages iast year.

Mr. J i m Burton of Lowestoft and we lit the moth-lamp at 6 p.m. and Plumigera began arriving at it almost at once and so peisisted, with steadily increasing frequency, tili at 7.30 we would rob the

[Photograph by S. Beaufoy, Esq. SUFFOLK

GOLDEN HOVERING

F L Y : CALLICERA

SPINOL.®

RND. (p.

149).

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wood of no more ; and spent the residue of a most enjoyable evening at 16 High Street in Needham Maiket. T h e main feature of the night was all lack of ' rozzling in with hesitating flight' over the edges of the s h e e t : each Moth dropped, a bolt f r o m the blue, verticallv like Trepida. W a r m and slight south-west air, dense clouds and no moon just suited them ; but another feature was sparcity, after so fine an autumn, of all other Insects, which totalled :—1 worn Dilutata, 1 Satellitia, a dozen Populi with hardly more Brumata, and a single Pennaria, of which three flew to light at Monks Soham the next evening, being almost the sole Moths there this autumn. Other Orders showed only three or four Daddies Erioptera hybrida, one female Anthomyid, one Dryomyza analis and a single Ichneumon, Ophion obscurus. All the Moths were males, for females seem obtainable only by breeding, which has hitherto produced no kind of parasite of Plumigera anywhere. Enough were bagged to supply three or four other Members ; and the same evening Member De W o r m s was taking it, though less freely, in the Cotswold Hills where the form is larger and its markings more variegated, possibly on account of a Sycamore diet. Though Mr. Platten's Discovery of Plumigera in Suffolk was published in 1937 (Trans. S N S . iii, p.

295), it is still allowed no ränge north of Bucks at Trans. Ent. Soc. 1947, p. 346 !

SENSITIVENESS OF LARVAE TO T E M P E R A T U R E . — H a v i n g been given a few ova of R. sacraria by Dr. De W o r m s in September 1947 which hatched at the end of that month, I thought it wise to allowthem artificial heat at night during the Coming colderweather.

I had no hot cupboard ; but I had a small round water-heater that was heated by gas. So, when the larvae were half-grown, I stood their cage, a small wooden one with sliding glass front and gauze back, in the half of a cardboard box that gave an air space of about one inch round the cage. This box I suspended with the open side, but not the cage, touching the heater. And, to make Observation easier, the cage was stood at an angle that brought one corner a little nearer to the heater. T o my annoyance, one night towards the end of October three larvae chose that very corner to spin-up in, although the surfaces were smooth glass and -wood ; and they ignored the grass and moss and twigs, which I had put into the back of the cage.

T w o more larvae did the same thing the following night, thus preventing the glass from being raised in order to supply the larvae still feeding, which had to be done through a hole in the gauze. T h e n I turned the cage the opposite way round and, sure enough, the remaining three larvae spun-up among the litter touching the warm corner, I am sure the temperature inside the cage, and through the glass, could not have been more than a very few degrees higher at the front of the cage than at the back, where the warm air could get through the gauze. But it was obvious that this slight difference was appreciated by the larvae.— P. J.

BURTON,

Lowestoft.