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NEWS FOR NATURALISTS. ' W h i l e on earth, H u m a n Heart, forget not that, If earth is loved and lovely, heaven must be lovelier still.' —Grace Aguilar's Martyr, cap. xxii. BEFORE founding the Bury St. Edmunds Naturalists' Society, its originators were so good as to consult our views upon the subject; and we replied that the more such bodies our County possessed, the greater would become public sympathy in the preservation of its Natural Beauty and the knowledge of its Biology. So, on 20 April last it came into being, alongside Mildenhall, Lowestoft, Stowmarket and Ipswich. Its objects and propaganda are obviously taken from our own. Major Guy Aylmer, is president, Mr. Cyril Grange chairman, Miss Williams of Stanningfield is honorary secretary and Mr. Nesling of Bury honorary treasurer. We can recall no other British county boasting five such Societies, and hope that ere long Sudbury will resume and Beccles follow suit. Newmarket, in this respect, at present appears hopeless.— The value of such distributional societies was well exemplified this year when, but for the vigilance of the Lowestoft Field Club, a couple of Little Buntings Emberiza pusilla, Pall., a vagrant mainly to our northern isles, would have gone unrecorded in that district on 11 February and two more at Reydon on 13th. It is NEW to Suffolk. We have received a circular announcing the issue of a quarterly " Entomologist's Gazette " to be edited by M M . E. W. Classey and R. L. E. Ford, and published by Watkins & Doncaster, the well-known dealers of 36 Strand, at a sov. per annum, each of the four Parts to contain fully fifty-two pages, illustrated. Is there room for such a magazine, devoted to " especially the Lepidoptera, Collecting Methods, Technique, Literature and History," thus continuing to deal with the already most fully worked branch of Insect-life ? A " large green stone," on the beach at Treyarnon Bay southwest of Padstow in Cornwall late in December 1949, resolved itself into a Loggerhead Turtle of some two years' growth : a very rare species in British waters. It had come a couple of thousand miles across the Atlantic in the Gulf Stream from Mexico ; and was identified by the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (London Paper). This is a quite different and much larger species than the Dermatochelys coriacea, L. (Trans, ii, 210), recorded from Suffolk.
Now that the details of our Avocets' return to breed in Britain have been given in the public press, need for Ornithological Secretiveness upon the subject is obviously past. Ticehurst's Suffolk notes about 1840 seem to represent the latest indigenous breedings, so fully a Century elapsed ere its next nesting, which
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was during 1938 only in Ireland and 1946 in Norfolk, where eggs were laid but disappeared before hatching. The last German War's sole benefit is that parts of our Suffolk coast were defencably inundated, which physical modification of some fifteen hundred acres attracted these maritime Birds to the Minsmere Level, south of Scott's Hall in Dunwich. Numbers collected first on 8 April 1947 here, where a dozen Avocets were still feeding after several weeks and a nesting colony was discovered in mid-May ; four females laid and their thirteen eggs were successfully reared to free-flight, excepting two destroyed by a Carrion Crow. In June a second colony appeared upon Havergate Island, a shingle ridge of (erstwhile) 260 acres, part of Orford running narrowly between the outer River Aid and inner Gull Stream ; this produced eight free-fliers, giving a British total of sixteen young, all Suffocian. Later, in August, they spread along our coast and as far inland as Cambridge with isolated Wanderers in Devon and Cornwall estuaries.—In 1948 Avocets first arrived at the Minsmere exact former nesting-ground at 4.30 p.m. on 13 April : eight were there by the following dawn. However, the water had become much fresher, by no means to their taste, so they moved before 21st to Havergate, where five pairs completed their clutches by 2 May. After the two-and-twenty days incubation, four of these had been devoured by Rats, whose normal food there is Crabs. Then two females laid again, of which clutches Rats destroyed one ; but of the other three young Birds free-flighted along with more from a different site : totalling three less than the previous year.—Before a stiff north-westerly gale on 1 March 1949, the sea made eight great breaches in the Havergate sea-wall and inundated the Avocets' breeding-ground with four feet of water ; pumping &c. reduced the depth to two feet by March-end and normality by 11 April. Eight of these Birds arrived on 14 April and at once paired ; in a week more came and April-end showed a dozen pairs to be present, that ultimately rose to seventeen. By late June no less than 50-60 Avocets were feeding together, for over thirty young survived and a few pairs successfully bred elsewhere. By August some eighty Birds dispersed and wandered from Suffolk.—During the last week of January 1950, a solitaire was feeding on the Orwell shore ; and, in the course of this season twenty-one pairs successfully bred on Havergate Island. So much wastage was found to be occasioned by Insects, mainly Coleopterous, attacking parcels of food from abroad that the Department of Industrial Research experimented to discover an impregnable packing-material (Times, Dec. 1949). The result is the adoption of several folds of the very thin and light Cellulose Wadding impregnated with D.D.T. Along its galleries and into its unparallel holes the dep^edators wander, without penetration, tili they succumb to the poison. It is, of course, equally efficacious in home use.
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There was an earlier botanical Coyte than that mentioned at Trans, vi, 178. This was the noted William Beeston Coyte, M.D., born about 1741, son of William Coyte, M.B., of Ipswich (cf. DNB. xii, 424). He seems named after that William Beeston, physician and Botanist who died in 1732 (Local Paper, 8 Feb. 1950) and had a remarkable garden in that town which contained " a fine collection of exotics." William Coyte was his nephew, left his mansion with the hope that he would keep up the garden with the same number of species of physic plants ; and it eventually came to a great-nephew, author of the 1796 " Hortus Botanicus Gippovicensis." " Coytes Gardens" still locates it between Friars and Princes streets in the heart of the town. This Society's Recorder of Flowering-plants asks : " Did you read my letter in EAnglian Daily Times on 11 August, concerning my arrest at Bamham on the Breck on 7th, while botanising along the Dukes Ride ? Our excursions visited this spot in a iieet of cars on 22 July and again on 12 August, when nothing happened. But I go alone and am arrested, due to the activities of a mischievous stranger ! " On 7 August, his letter states, " 7th Aug. I was botanising along one of the ancient Breckland tracks near Bamham, a motorist happened to pass and, wondering what I was doing, stopped. He got out of his vehicle, approached and passed a few odd remarks and then drove off, apparently went to the nearest telephone and called the police. About half an hour later, to my great surprise, when I had just sat down and was commencing my tea, an armed guard arrived to detain me for questioning. I was taken away and held for the best part of an hour and a half. If a coach or a motor load of trippers had been there nothing would have happened ; but, simply because I was alone, I was subjected to this unjust humiliation—and this is not the first time. My day was spoilt; my nerves, which are never very strong, upset; and, in consequence of this detainment, I lost the return train at Bury. Members of the Suffolk Naturalists' Society and others, who desire to study and enjoy nature on their own, should be given every facility and must be protected from this victimisation. The public must also learn to realise that not everybody desires to follow the crowd. There are still a large number of thoughtful people who prefer to ramble alone in the remoter parts of the countryside and, when on a public right of way and doing no damage, wish to enjoy absolute freedom of movement without fear of wrongful questioning and detainment, due to the activities of certain prying individuals. F. W. S I M P S O N . " —The matter was taken up by the London Press on 18 August and ridiculed in that of Ipswich on 19th. Well have our gallant lads sacrificed their lives for a " Free England " !
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It has just been discovered that the Tabanid two-winged Fly Chrysops silacea, Austen, which breeds in muddy streams there, carries the worm Loa loa, Guyot, to give tree-top Monkeys, as well as more lowly human beings, the Loiasis disease in equatorial Africa, the Entom. Soc's. Proceedings announced last August. There, at a Meeting on 3 May our Member, Mr. N. D. Riley exhibited a parchment deed of 1 May 1806, printed in extenso, which dissolved the existing Aurelian Society and created the first Entomological Society of London. It is signed with such still-known names as Haworth, Ingall and Savage, along with Burrell and Skirmshire and F. Hooker junior, of Norfolk. It is ever noticeable that the Ven. William Kirby of Barham abstained from entering upon any such contentious measure. The Scots locality Aviemore is still very populär among Entomologists, and this year one of our Members writes thence on 10 September :—" It is delightful here and we have thoroughly enjoyed our visit. The scenery is magnificent, and one cannot go out anywhere without seeing Nature at her best, unspoiled to a great extent by that ugly Mammal, Man ! But there are many bare hillsides, which were once clothed with forest and electric schemes have ruined much of the wild beauty in places. We have managed to get out every day for walks and other trips, as there have always been sunny periods : not a single all-day soaker. After our first two days here, the weather turned rough and squally, as was pretty general, with snow last week on the Caingorms. This is not good for collecting and it has been hard work to gather Insects. Sugar seems very little use and light poor; however, I have filled up my blank Polia solidaginis. I have been hoping for the marvellous Scots forms of Aporophyla lutulenta, but only two have turned up : it may be kept back by bad weather or too e?rly in the season for it. So far, I have seen but one A. nigra, a couple of Caradnina paleacea, a very varied series of Hydriomena immanata and there are a good many Polia chi to be had. Only two kinds of Dragonflies appear : Sympetrum Scoticum and /Eschna juncea, a pair of the latter, new to me ; and no Ichneumons except, I think, Amblyteles oratorius. Returning soon to the flat Suffolk shire." Last March a London Paper quoted an (unnamed) statistician as reckoning the number of persons, individual Homo sapiens, L., who have hitherto existed upon our Earth to have been forty-seven billions. No specific date for the emergence of the species is vouchsafed ; but details show that this allots 134, 633, 976 folk to every square mile of land surface, i.e. every Square foot occupied by five people. Truly " the earth is strewn with dead men's bones " ; but, the paper adds, it is not responsible for the figures !
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Our Member Geoffrey W. Cooke wrote to the Field of 13 May 1950 : " I have recently designed an instrument to aid in catching Rabbits. The idea has been patented, and increased my bag four times at the least. The instrument, carried by the warrener, will give the exact position of a Ferret; and the Ferret and Rabbits can be caught by digging only one hole." Mr. Giles considered that a demonstration would be of much interest to Members ; as proved to be the case at our May Excursion. As representing the excellence of our County's Oak-trees, it should not be overlooked, as was done at Trans, vi, 42, that " Battisford was formerly Part of the Estate of Sir Thomas Gressham, who built the Royal Exchange in London [opened by Queen Elizabeth in January 1571]. The Frame of which was made upon the Tye there ; a large Common of about two hundred Acres ; and most of the Timber, which was made use of in that Work, was taken off his Manor there. The sawing Pits remain to this Day," i.e. 1703 when Sir Richard Gipps wrote his Essay on Suffolk Families and inserted this Information under that of Salter, who later held the property. Among the world's rarest Birds is sometimes accounted the Takahe, a marsh Coot as large as a Barndoor Cock, living among the Snow Grasses of New Zealand. Only four museum specimens were known of this species that swims but cannot fly. Now a small colony has recently been discovered in a closed glacial valley beside a tarn amid mountains that look (Picture Post, June 1950) like any ordinary Scots ränge. The brilliant plumage shows the head, neck and breast deep blue, shoulders peacockblue, body dashed with sage-green and tawny olive ; the beak is pink, running up to the bright scarlet frontal shield. The Bird is timid and vanishes upon the least alarm into the densest patches of reeds. Its nest is constructed there, whence rarely more than one chick a year is reared. The Dominion's Ministry of Internal Affairs manages such matters far better than do we at home : it has diverted all traffic from the Takahes' lake Te Anau, where Dr. G. B. Orbell of Invercargill found them a couple of years ago ; is destroying such predatory Mammals as Stoats and even occasional Deer, that annually migrate through the valley ; and has obtained the sole existing photographs of live Takehes. Though the locality holds probably hardly a hundred specimens, which feed mainly upon Snow Grass, no less than 435,000 acres of the valley are reserved to their use as a National Park. It is distinctly surprising, with our authentic SufTolk records of Trans, ii, p. 1 and iv, p. 83, to find that " the largest Squid, Architethis princeps [auct.], measures fifty-five feet from the hinder tip of the body to the tip of the two outstretched long
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tentacles. Those best qualified to know believe it possible, from marks made by their suckers on the bodies of Sperm Whales which feed on them, that others may measure a hundred feet long. But there is no evidence for the two hundred feet sometimes suggested. We do not know all there is to be known about life in the depths of the ocean ; and Squid abound in the deep waters of the Antarctic. In 1900 a plague of Squid in the Channel ruined the Lobster and Crab fisheries on both the English and French coasts, when even the largest Crabs sought refuge in shallow waters " (Maurice Burton, D.K. Zoology Brit. Mus's. " Story of Animal Life," 1949, i, p. 214). T h e Daily Telegraph last October announced a special Deep-sea Expedition, about to investigate ocean-bottoms round the equator. There is a populär and very thrilling article by Frank Bullen on these great Scandinavian " Kraken," with which he synonymises Squids, in the Strand Magazine, 1901, pp. 631-40.
NOVEL SUFFOLK DRAGONFLY.—It is necessary that our Society
should notice the record at Entomologist, lxxxiii, 1950, p. 15, of Somatochlora metallica, Lind., in the collection of the late Mr. J. J. F. X. King, now in the Glasgow University Museum. It bears the scrawled label : " Suffolk specimen sent to me by Mr. Spyer or Fryer." T h e only two occasions, as far as I know, upon which Sir John Fryer (who died 22 November 1948) visited Suffolk were when he and our Hon. Secretary collected together upon Easton Bavents cliffs and Blythburgh Heath in July 1924 ; and in the Mildenhall district in May 1914.—While it would be good to welcome this handsome Dragonfly to the Suffolk fauna, the improbability of the record's correctness must be stressed, until confirmation be forthcoming, for many reasons : (1) It is not a migratory species ; (2) Apart from two or three localised spots in Kent and Sussex and Hants., Surrey is its only English habitat; (3) T h e vague and unsatisfactory label; (4) Fryer may have captured or had sent him Scots or Surrey specimens and forwarded from Suffolk to King one of these without adding its place of origin ; (5) One hardly likes to add mistaken identity but Cordylia aenea, which actuatly is locally common in Suffolk, would look extremely like S. metallica after death and, if its date were before early June, it could refer to only the former species. Certainly I do not credit the specimen in question as a Suffolker : but you never can teil! C. aenea took 108 years to confirm in our County (Trans, v, 38). — P. J. BURTON, Lowestoft, 26 Mar,