Notes and Observations 9 Part 4

NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS SUN PILLAR. Miss Abbey of South wold writes : " Just after 5 p.m., on February 23rd, there were two suns, very clear and distinct and bright-shining one above the other and apparently touching. A thin wisp of cloud lay across the middle, where they seemed to touch. I watched this stränge sight from two westward-looking rooms. It lasted for several minutes from the time I first saw it."

HALOS. This note was sent to Mr. R. R. Wilson for his observations. He writes : " Very few of us have not at some time seen a halo round the sun (or moon) often called a ' burr ' in rural districts. This is only one manifestation of what can occur and can sometimes be seen. Some halo phenomena are very complex. We may see a mock sun (or moon) or a sun (or moon) pillar. Lunar optical phenomena are naturally less often observed.

There are ' arcs of contact' to halos, sometimes brightly coloured.

All these phenomena require that ice crystals are present in the atmosphere. These are usually in the form of cirrus or cirrostratus clouds. The most common halo is that of 22°.

It is also

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possible to see the 46° halo. Whenever a halo is observed it is worth while looking to see if there is anything eise visible as well.

It should be mentioned that some of these manifestations are not frequent and are worth noting for one's own interest. T h e mathematical reasons for halos are found in connection with refraction of light.

NOCTULE (Nyctalus noctuld).

About 2 0 Noctules were found in a hollow tree which blew down in February, 1956. This tree had been used by woodpeckers and during the spring of 1955, we saw the bats Aying around and entering the holes made by the birds D. C . EDWARDS, Wingfield.

Mr. Edwards sent me two of these bats alive, one of which in my drawing room and in füll daylight crawled out of the box in which they were confined, feil about 2 feet on to the floor and took flight. It flew about 45 feet down the room towards a wall, turned back again with the u p and down swoop typical of a bat Aying about a room and after a few hesitant twists turned towards a window Aying straight into the glass just as a bird will after Coming into a house. As is well known, bats normally avoid obstacles by " echo-sounding " and glass, though transparent, would reAect sound waves as well as any other solid medium.

Mr. M. Blackmore teils me that it is not unusual for Noctule and Leister's Bats to crash into windows when liberated in a room. Being high-Aying species, they are not so well adapted as many of the others for Aights in conAned places and may come to grief in such circumstances.

CRANBROOK, Glemham.

SEROTINE (Eptesicus serotinus).

In February, 1956, I caught a serotine bat in my sitting room. There is a colony of pipistrelles in the roof but I have never seen a serotine here before.

C. P. ELLIOT, Little Glemham.

This very interesting record—the bat has been deAnitely identiAed as a serotine—is only the second from SuAolk, the Arst being from Lowestoft (Trans. S.N.S. Vol. II pt. i, p. 13.,1932).

L O N G EARED BAT (Plecotus auritus).

We have here a colony of long eared bats in a hollow tree. D. C. EDWARDS, WingAeld.

RABBIT (Oryctolagus cuniculus).

While the foundations of the new Martins Bank were being excavated in the Buttermarket, Ipswich, a mass of domestic refuse was brought to light, amongst which were some rabbits' bones. These were found below a piece of pottery which can be assigned to the early 12th Century and from the circumstances of their discovery cannot be the remains of an animal which at a later date dug its way into this rubbish heap to die there. We can therefore say with some certainty that rabbits were being eaten in Ipswich in the l l t h Century, if not earlier.

H. E . P. SPENCER.

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This is one of the earliest records of the occurrence of rabbits in Britain. Though rabbits undistinguishable from O. cuniculus are known from the early pleistocene of Britain and Western Europe they seem subsequently to have become extinct in Britain and by Roman times to have been confined to Spain and south western France in Europe. Caesar (De Bello Gallico) mentions hares as existing in Britain but not rabbits and there are in fact no pre-Norman British allusions to the animal. There is no mention of warrens in Domesday Book, the names " rabbit " and " cony " are both of French origin and there is no native name either English or Celtic. It seems certain therefore that rabbits were introduced into England by the Normans and the earliest known record is from the midden at Raleigh Castle, Essex, which was occupied from the 1 Ith to the early 13th centuries. They soon seem to have become plentiful and by 1272 the capture of conies with ferrets is mentioned, after which date many references to rabbits can be found.

C. YELLOW NECKED MOUSE (Apodemus flavicollis) has been reported from the following. new locality :—Snape (in apple stÜre in house with many A. sylvaticus). DOWAGER COUNTESS OF CRANBROOK. L O N G TAILED FIELD MOUSE (Apodemus sylvaticus).

In Stratford St. Andrew while loading sugar beet on to a trailer from small heaps in a field on two occasions I saw field mice run out from under the beet when these were removed. Unfortunately it was not possible to see if any of the beet had been eaten.

A. HEFFER, Gt. Glemham Natural History Club.

W I L D RABBIT. A lad of fifteen brought Mr. Boreham an animal his dog had caught on some allotments and asked if it was a rabbit or a hare. It was a genuine Wild Rabbit. Mr. Boreham comments that things are soon forgotten and the next generation will never know the pleasure of seeing this creature and its many pretty ways.

WHITE MICE. Among a large number of ordinary house mice disturbed during the threshing of an oat Stack at Great Glemham, in April, 1956, were two half grown albinos, white with pink eyes. These were in the same nest as a number of normally coloured ones, were caught alive and kept.

D E N N I S CHANDLER, Gt. Glemham Natural History Club.

T H E SACRIFICE OF A T O A D . The following is a rite in which the Common Toad, Bufo bufo bufo L., and ants, probably the Yellow Hill Ants, Acanthomyps flavus Fab., were used for the devilish purpose of casting spells over horses. If the person seeking these powers withstood the devil's nerve-racking noises and secured the toad's bone, any horse, broken or unbroken, would behave and work to his word of command or touch.

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The ritual was described to me by an old West Suffolk farm hand, the last time in 1925. He became very excited and awe-struck when telling of the extraordinary horsemanship he had witnessed, but as he remarked, " Oi dussent dew ut maeself ". " Yew dint know owd Tammie S— who use ter wuck at owd A—'s farm, he wus ar rum owd man. Oi recken he'd be ar little arfor yar toime, bor. Wull now uss oi was ar-gorn ter tull yer, he cud dew anything with they owd hosses wot he use tew kinda sea arter, oi ar sin they owd hosses reglar shake und turn all of-ver *muck-wash when he just kinda spake tew um loike. Arter oi'ed bin with um ar long toime und sorter got use tew um, he towd mae uss how oi cud dew ut. Now, he say, yew marnt gorn tull noobody ulse how oi towd yer, dew it ownt wurk. Now, he say, fust yew goo and kitch un owd toad und kill ut, then yew goo und oopen un owd arnts' hill und bury ut in u t ; yew hatar lave ut there fower or five dais or tili arter yew sorter know they ar picked they owd boons clean ; arter that you hatar goo und git all on um, und yew sorter wonter wuck ut so uss yew be ar-gittin they arbout free or fower minutes tew twelve in ther dead o' night, und wot ever yew dew yew marnt lave nun arhind.

Now, he say, when yew git um, you take they all down tew ther owd river, und yew wonter sorter kinda keep yar eye oopen loike für ar half-tidy owd place where theyar arnt any weeds und ther owd worter is runnin wholly suffen farst of-ver they owd stoons. Now, he say, frow ther hull lot-ar they owd boons in und wotch für ther wun thass gorn aginst ther stream, coos thass ther wun yew wont, nun ar they others ownt dew. Coo, he say, yew'll hater be suffen farst tew git ut, und wen yew dew git ut loike put im in yar westcut pocket und tull noobuddy yow got ut, und yew'll be able to marster eny owd hoss.

Now, he say, yew'll find ut arnt un asey job tew dew, coos all ther toime yew are arter they owd boons they'll be fhulls-terswack, they'll be owd boons und chains ar-rattlin' und they'll git louder and louder uss yew git nearar ther owd river, ther owd church bell wull be ardongun twelve uss wull, und wen yew goo ter git ther owd boon out ut'll be wuss un ever. Now yew marnt run away, he say, coos thass ony ther owd davil arter yew, und he ownt hut."

I knew an old horse-keeper who had been unsuccessful in carrying the ritual to its conclusion. He would only say that as the ants devoured the toad, so he became more and more tormentedand crazed, until he had to remove the toad's body and throw it away.

The Sacrifice of a Slug for the eure of foot-corns probably also had associations with witchcraft and black magic.

A Slug is procured, preferably the Black Slug Arion ater L. It is to be placed upon the affected foot, so that it must pass completely over the com. It is then taken to a nearby bush *Wet with sweat.

fCommotion.

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and hung upon a thorn. With the death and shriveling up of the body, the com will disappear. Failure to eure is attributed to birds, the ritual must then be performed again. It was successfully carried out by a Gipsy in 1943, and the patient walks with ease in 1956 and thanks his lucky stars for meeting with the Gipsy and his magical slug.

H . J . BOREHAM. B L I N D WELL SHRIMP —Niphargussu bterraneus Leach, has been recorded from Cringleford near Norwich (Trans. Norf. & Nor. N. H.S. VI), but there are no records of this animal from Suffolk.

Düring a test of the recently dug bore at Barsham, a diligent lookout was kept for Niphargus but none was found. A . E . CLAPHAM. PUFF BALL.—Calvatia gigantea, was and probably still is used for stanching bleeding wounds. Before the first World War, most country folk in Horringer and Little Saxham, including my father, always had a large piece hanging from the rafters of the lodge (out-house). If anyone cut himself to cause much bleeding, the piece of puff-ball was fetched and placed over the wound—the more spores it contained the better. When applied it gives a soft warm soothing effect and does stop the bleeding.

We country folk call it " bull-face ".

H. J. BOREHAM. WOODPECKERS AT W O R K .

Mr. H. J. Boreham collected in March, 1956, chips of wood chiselled from a dead Birch, Betula pendula, by Great Spotted Woodpeckers. The tree had been deeply chiselled and almost ringed in their search for larvae, probably a species of beetle, for the workings of these can be seen in the chips. The tree was killed probably by the fungus Polyporus betulinus of which three were attached to the trunk immediately above the birds' work.

COASTAL EROSION.—Between Covehithe Broad and Easton Broad on January 29th, 1956, the Bird Section field party saw a round brick pillar about 30 ft. high rising from the beachseveral yards from the cliff face. It was learnt later from an article in the Lowestoft Journal of March 9th, that this was a well dug for a Naval Camp during the first World War, when there were two or three fields between the well and the cliffs. When we visited the spot about two months later storms had destroyed the " mysterious chimney ". The extent of the erosion of this part of the Suffolk coast in the last forty years may be estimated.

A.

BEAUFOY.

Our members will be much pleased to hear that Dr. R. G. West was invited to read his paper on the Quaternary Deposits at Hoxne, before the Royal Society on March 15th, 1956. It is an honour upon which we all congratulate him. A synopsis of his investigations is printed in the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 1954 (Vol. XX pt. 2), and in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. The first of these may be seen at the Ipswich Central Library.

HOXNE INVESTIGATIONS.