News for Naturalists 7 Part 3

122

NEWS FOR NATURALISTS. " A young fancy, which could convert T h e sound of C o m m o n T h i n g s to something exquisite."

IT is necessary to explain that the Members of 1950 have received, and paid the printer for, two publications. (1) The usual annual " Transactions " for that year, issued on 20 February 1951; and (2) its " Supplement : Suffolk Bird Report for 1950," issued on 25 September 1951. The (total fifty pages of the) latter was considered, by our two Bird Recorders, necessary to bring the subject up to date and ordered to be printed by the Meeting of October 1950. It cost the Society fifty pounds, and more, which surplus Dr. Westall has generously defrayed. In it the Yellowshank (at page 28) had been already known in our County (cf.

Trans. 1938, p. 92). Both publications are to be bound in common, under the date 1950.

When Mrs. Susan Smith moved last summer, from Minchinhampton in Gloucester across England into Suffolk, her black tom and six other Cats came too. The tom disappeared thence last February ; and, on 2 March he appeared at his former Glos, home, fully a hundred miles away (London paper, 10 March).

Such remigratory instinct is not uncommonly fulfilled, though rarely at so great a distance. E. Baraud's 1928 " How Animals find their Way About: a Study of Distant Orientation and Place-recognition " is instructive ; though it was their practical Utility in destroying Rodents that caused our Felix domesticus (now a mixed race of the Wild Cat, F. catus, indigenous to Britain from Pleistocene times, with the Egyptian F. Caffra of Africa) to be imported into Europe as more effective for that purpose than the earlier-employed Weasels.

The Ipswich daily paper on 3 August discovered our original Member—Mr. William Fowler, a former honorary secretary of the Beccles Historical Society, and contributor to the Transactions of the Suffolk Naturalists' Society, with whose members he shared some of his geological discoveries. When Mr. Fowler built a house at Nelson, New Zealand, last year, he discovered a Suffolk connection. A few miles from the natural harbour of Nelson is the now rapidly growing township of Stoke. It has grown up around the home of William Songer, servant and factotum of Captain Wakefield, whose expeditionary party of early British emigrants arrived in Nelson in 1841. Songer was a son of Stokeby-Nayland, and he gave the name of his native parish to his new home " down under." Mr. Fowler thinks that William Songer " must have inherited a sense of beauty that enabled him to see in this green valley some resemblance to the haunts of his child-

NEWS FOR NATURALISTS

123

hood, for one of the roads he named Nayland and another he called Polstead, while Songer Street was later named after him."

Mr. Fowler has not resigned membership of our Society.

The Government have informed the Reindeer Council of the United Kingdom that they are prepared to allow the import to Scotland from Sweden of 25 reindeer, subject to strict conditions, to determine whether they can be successfully reared in the Highlands and islands. Sir Frederick Whyte, the chairman of the council, opening an exhibition of reindeer products at 14, Ladbroke Square, W.ll—the home of Mr. and Mrs. Hillar Kallas—on 8 March (on 9th announced The Times, which elaborated the subject in a leader on lOth), said that discussions are shortly to take place between the Secretary of State for Scotland and representatives of the Reindeer Council. Mr. Kallas said that it was hoped to bring the 25 reindeer from northern Sweden to Scotland, where the conditions are favourable for such an experiment, by June. In three years the number would naturally increase to 75 and if the experiment were successful it was intended to import thousands of animals. The undertaking at this stage, he said, was not commercial but purely scientific. There was not a part of the reindeer that could not be put to commercial use. The exhibits include rugs, winter coats and boots, für mittens, carved knife sheaths, decorative buttons, and paper knives. Those attending the opening ceremony were regaled with samples of roast reindeer meat and mulled wine.

One ill-effect of this disastrous year has been the number of human deaths from Wasps' stings, and the speed of ensuing dissolution. Newspaper accounts of such do the doctors' explanations small credit. To mid-September we notice five English cases and, with no especial attention, can recall but two previous ones in any single year, thus : 4 ix 1911. Woman stungon leg, main vein, 21 August, Warwick.

Acute blood poisoning.

1911. Woman stung onfinger,Bedford. Shock.

9 ix 1911. A £30 horse. One Wasp's sting, died in 2 hours.

Leicester.

17 viii 1918. Farmer's little girl, twice in fxeld. Devon. " The third death from Wasps within a week " (London paper) was : 12 ix 1951. Married woman of 64. Ist stung 1944, unconscious 5 hours ; secondly stung on hand. Died in 20 min.

Dorset. Exceptionally sensitive.

14 ix 1951. Man of 34, stung on neck, 12th. Died 15 min.

Devon. " Allergie " to stings.

124

NEWS FOR NATURALISTS

19 ix 1951. Married woman of 45, on leg, 16th. Within hour.

Leicester. Misadventure.

Blue-bag is still the best remedy, juice of tobacco or of onion beneficial. We cannot all resemble an employee of the Kelly Air Force in Texas, who was bitten last August by a deadly Rattlesnake, presumably Crotalus horridus, Cuv., which crawled away and itself died. The " victim " however, was so permeated with the poisonous sodium Cyanide, from his daily work, as to resist all effects of the Reptile-venom and suffered in no way.

The Norman love of Animals, referred to at Trans, v. 147, is well exemplified by King Henry I's collection about 1150. " At Woodstock he enclosed a spacious Park for sport; and added a menagerie for wild beasts, among which are mentioned Lions, Leopards, Tigers, Cameis and, what appears to have attracted the notice of the historian Malmsbury a Porcupine" (Lingard's Hist. Engl, ii, 210).

I saw Mr. Goddard yesterday. [26 July, 1951], He asked me to teil you that the Singleton Smith collection of Lepidoptera, you were enquiring about, is safely housed at the children's library, near the Town Hall. He said it is in quite good order and he overhauled it only last month. Lowestoft Borough Library was opened on 15 August, 1951 at a new site in Suffolk-road there, Miss Madge Wiliams teils us in August.

For many years marine Naturalists have noticed the occurrence of Salmon or Sea Trout (Trans, ii, 119 and vii, 94) along the East Anglian coast, in fact, ever since dear old Frank Buckland was informed in 1875 of their summer frequency off Yarmouth ; he pointed out that these lively Salmo Trutta, Linn, must enter fresh-water for their food and suggested that the local specimens had come south from Northumberland. Consequently the vicinity of sluices that drain low-lying land is the most profitable for their capture in seine-nets. Proof of their northern origin has been obtained (The Times points out on 10 October, 1951) : " The capture of some tagged Fish during the season which closed on 31 August shows a Herring-sized Trout, bearing a tiny silver disc inscribed ' W.' which was being prepared for cooking in a Lowestoft home ; it was traced to a catch at Kessingland [just south of which is the low-lying land of the Hundred River]. The Fishery Department knew the wanderer had been marked only about a month earlier at Tweedmouth. From the same boat a month later came another tagged Trout; this had come about two hundred miles from Warkworth on the River Coquet, whence was learned that a specimen, tagged in the sea at Kessingland the previous summer, had ended its career in the River Tweed," thus reversing the long journey.

125 What is nowadays recoverable of the Beeston and White collections in Ipswich ? " No better picture of Suffolk, as it was in the days of George I, can be found than Defoe's ' Particular and Diverting Account of whatever is Curious and worth Observation,' which was published in 1724 and later in a cheap form with introduction by Professor Henry Morley. Defoe travelled through the eastern counties in 1722 ; and praises in Ipswich Dr. Beeston's collection of Exotic Plants, and the Chamber of Rarities formed by the eminent surgeon Mr. White, containing a Sea-horse carefully preserved [more likely some Cetacean than Hippocampus antiquorum, Lch.—Ed.], two Roman cinerary urns and a great many valuable coins " (Raven's 1895 Hist. Suffolk, 239).

The Danish naval research ship Galathea cabled Manila to-day that she had found signs of life existing on the world's deepest ocean bed—the Philippine Deep off the East Coast of Mindanao.

The message said that " American Professor Claude Zobell had recovered live bacteria from more than 10,000 metres (over six miles), and kept them alive under a 1,000-atmosphere pressure in a laboratory."—Local paper, 26 July, 1951.

There are four hundred million British subjects in 1951, which is nearly one-third of the world's population. " Everything was happy to-day, and needs must I talk about it: the Thrushes were garrulous, and even the solemn Rooks cawed content. The Cuckoo's surprising note sounded clear and round. The Blackbirds were singing the Thrushes down.

Gooseberry bushes were green, but the Whitsuntide berries hardly formed upon them yet, though the Blackthorn was in flower.

Down by the gate was a Horse-chestnut tree, which always came into leaf early and now showed sticky buds. Something sang aloud in response to the stirring of Spring : Summer was Coming,, and Winter a long way off. How could any heart but rejoice when Lambs were in the pastures, the wanton air shook Blossoms down in happy sport from trees, and wafted the scent of Wallflowers abroad ; when Daisies were showing their white heads on the lawns, and the tender twilight whispered a lullaby to the world ? "—Miss S. MacNaughtan's Four Chimneys, cap. ix. c. 1905 The Zoological Society of London completed its annual stocktaking and valuation on Dec. 31, 1950, showed that the specimens (" population," the Daily Telegraph termed it on 21 Jan., 1951) of the Zoo, excludingfishesand insects, is 3,948, valued at £86,755 19s. 6d. The 800 Mammals covering 288 species, are valued at £60,954 9s. 6d., while 1,919 Birds, consisting of 875 varieties, are put at £21,344 15s. The most valuable creature exhibited is the Okapi, priced at £2,000, while at the bottom of the list are Minnows at twopence apiece. Prices of zoological NEWS FOR NATURALISTS

126

NEWS FOR NATURALISTS

specimens vary according to supply and demand, and this year the stock valuation is nearly -£10,000 lower than last year's £96,626.

The reason is that all zoological collections, depleted in stock at the end of the war, are now well resupplied and some of the restrictions on removal have been abolished. Many Birds are no longer so difficult to obtain or in such demand. This is also true of certain Mammals.

Hippopotami, valued at £2,000 a year ago, are down to £1,500, African Elephants and Rhinoceroses are also priced at £1,500 each.

Tigers remain steady at £400 each and so do Lions at £100, while a King Penguin is still worth £200.

In a few cases this year we have ventured to Substitute frequency for the Authors' " Population," a howling misnomer that has unfortunately become applied to Insects during the last decade : nearly as bad as the utterly inanimate " dancing motes that people the sun-beams." Population can relate to nothing but the people, " men and women and children of a country or nation " : it is essentially human, restricted to Homo sapiens.

Applied to entomology, we should have to invent the word INSECTATION.

A METALLIC S P I D E R . — B y general sweeping over Breck plants close to the Iveagh Memorial obelisk about 11 a.m. on 18 June last I obtained a Spider that our Hon. Secretary and I expected must be new to Suffolk on account of its brilliant metallic green cephalothorax resembling that of the Beetle Malachius viridis, F. What was our disappointment when the Revd. Dr. Hull found it to be merely Epeira (Araneus) gibbosus, Walck. [Trans, iv, 162] immature " greenish but never lustrous, as far as I know : abundant in Essex " and doubtless Suffolk.—P. J. BURTON.

A HANDSOME M I L L I P E D . — A n unusually large specimen of the Julid, Schizophyllum sabulosum, Linn. [Trans, v, 87] was found by our Hon. Secretary sitting on the top of four-foot Bracken in Walberswick Wood about 3 p.m. on the dull 15 July last, and sent me by Mr. P. J. Burton. The crimson streak down its back was unusually bright.—E. A. ELLIS, Norwich Museum ; 17 July. [We have never Seen a Milliped in so conspicuous a position, for they usually " lurk " beneath boards on the ground.

But DR. F. A. TÜRK, the Milliped specialist, of Shangri-la, Reskadinnick near Camborne in Cornwall teils us (in lit. 20 August) that " I fairly frequently find them, after rain, at the top of fenceposts, etc., on the cliffs near here, especially at this time of year."

He adds that, as the legs appear to be blood-red, it seems to belong to the var. rubripes, Koch.—Ed.]