Notes and Observations 10 Part 3

NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS COMMON SHREW (Sotex araneus).

On July 17th, 1957, I found a common shrew lying dead on the ground. Its ears had white patches and its teeth were well worn. There was no obvious cause of death. On the following day I saw a cock blackbird kill a common shrew. P. H. T . HARTLEY, Badingham Rectory.

SQUIRRELS. I see red squirrels (S. vulgaris) here not infrequently. Grey squirrels (S. carolinensis) are said to be found quite near in Essex though I have not as yet Seen them here.

D R . GRACE GRIFFITH, Bures.

DORMOUSE (Muscardinus avellanarius).

On July 26th, 1 9 5 7 , I saw a dormouse sitting on its haunches on a wild raspberry cane holding a raspberry between its fore feet and eating it. Its tail seemed to be wound round the cane as if for support. It allowed me to approach within a yard or so and then slid quickly down the cane into the undergrowth.

D R . GRACE GRIFFITH, Bures.

YELLOW NECKED MOUSE (Apodemus flavicollis). Recorded from Earl Soham (in an apple stรถre with Mus musculus).

S. M. PILKINGTON, Earl Soham.

Five trapped in a house in one week during October, 1957.

No other species caught. All had on them a number of the mite Laelaps muris Ljongh, kindly identified by Mr. G. Owen Evans. This species is not host specific but is to be found on a variety of small mammals.

W. G. THURLOW, Stowmarket.

HOUSE MOUSE (Mus musculus).

In September, 1 9 5 7 , a semialbino house mouse was caught in a corn Stack at Spexhall. Its eyes were pink and its coat a yellowish chocรถlate brown.

R. V. ELLIS, W e n h a s t o n .

HOUSE MARTINS. During the last week in September on four occasions house martins congregated in considerable numbers each time over a different small area (each some 20 by 10 yards) of rough grass in the garden here. They seemed to be feeding on swarms of Thaumatomyia notata.

Meigen. (identified by Dr. H. Oldroyd) the larvae of which are predaceous on root-aphis in grasses and which often swarm in the autumn.

CRANBROOK, Great Glemham.

ADDER (Viperaberus).

Mr. D. H. Hetherington sent me a large female adder which he had unfortunately run over and killed on a road in Westleton, on October Ist, 1957. It was 605 mm. long (head and body 540 mm., tail 65 mm.). Malcolm Smith (British Amphibians and Reptiles) records but two larger females, one of 624 mm. from Lowestoft and another 712 mm. from Hereford.

CRANBROOK, Great Glemham.

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NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS

251

T A P E W O R M (Hymenoleosis erinacei. Gmelin.) New to Suffolk.

While dissecting a hedgehog recently I found that the intestine was more or less blocked by masses of the above tape worm, kindly identified by Mr. S. Prudhoe who teils me that it has only once before been recorded from Britain (Westmorland).

H . C. GRANT, Felixstowe.

MAGGOTS IN SALT. We have been collecting Field Vole skulls for someone who is engaged upon a revision of the British species.

We set break-back traps baited with apple in the rough grass along the sea wall, cut off the heads of the victims and packed them in dry common salt against their eventual preservation as skulls.

We could only visit our traps after tea so inevitably some of the heads had flies' eggs on them when put into the salt. After some days fully grown maggots made their way upwards through the salt to pupate just below the surface.

HOLLESLEY BAY COLONY NATURAL HISTORY

GROUP.

AMARANTHUS RETROFLEXUS Linn, (identified by Dr. S. M. Walter) has established itself in my garden as a weed.

DOROTHY CRANBROOK, Snape.

(Identified by Mr. J. E. Dandy) on waste ground at Aldringham.

Miss C. BURGESS. SEAKALE (Crambe maritima).

I have found a Single plant on the shingle " back-bone " of Havergate Island. It has been there for several years. It may be an " escape."

H . G . BROWNLOW, A l d e r t o n .

Mrs. Wightman has also found this this year at Shingle Street.

(Hind recorded it in 1889 at Southwold, Dunwich and Aldeburgh as wild and three of our botanists reported it in 1935 at Bawdsey (one plant), Shingle Street and Dunwich, but recent recorders do not appear to have found it lately. J. C. N. W I L L I S . ) Y E L L O W VETCH (Vicea lutea).

Mrs. Wightman also found at Shingle Street quite a large patch of this not very common plant.

S P I N Y COCKLEBUR (Xanthium spinosum). M r . E. Q. Bitton has found a specimen of this rare plant at Combs. Mr. Simpson, in sending this information, says he believes this is a new record for Suffolk. Mr. Bitton has also found the following aliens at Combs :

Echinochloa crus-galli (L.) Beauv.

Trifolium hybridum vor. elegans (Savi) Boiss.

Schkuhria pinnata O. Kuntze.

Medicago arabica (L.) All. Erodium moschatum (L.) Ait.

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NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS

Bidens pilosa L. Amaranthus hybridus Tagetes minuta L. All these are new to Suffolk.

Mr. Simpson also reports finding at Combs in October this year Tagetes minuta as an escape, a small plant related to the French Marigold, a native of Mexico and Amaranthus hybridus (probably, but the specimen was immature). At Felixstowe Docks this year he found Iva xanthiifolia Nutt, Prairie Ragweed, a casual from N. America where it is an important cause of hay-fever.

MERTENSIA SP. T h e unusual plant we were all puzzled about on the excursion to Hardwick Park last May is a species of Mertensia, probably M. virginica, a garden escape. It was growing apparently wild by the edge of a track near the wood.

I saw it in 1938 in Wherstead Park.

E. S.

ROWLING.

P U F F BALL (Calvaria saccata).

Recording plants at Wantisden Heath last May we were puzzled by a huge sausage-like fungus, about 10 inches tall and 2-J-3 inches in diameter. It was sent to Mr. Porter who says it is the sterile base of the puffball, Calvaria saccata, a remnant of last year's growth which has lost its sporebearing top. Some of the spores remain on the top of the stout stalk.

G O A T ' S BEARD. Mr. Boreham has sent me some specimens of curious abnormalities in the Feverfew and Goat's-Beard. In the latter, each floret rises above the involucre on a stalk more than 1 cm. long. T h e whole head is a rounded tuft much taller than the bracts round it. The pappus rising from the base of each small ovary is not feathery but of fine hairs. He has found other specimens, also at Fornham St. Martin, with the florets protruded on even longer stalks. In Mr. Boreham's Feverfew the usual flower heads are broken up into a number of smaller heads on long stalks rising from the common receptacle.

PROLIFERATION. Mr. Norman of Haiesworth has described to me a clover head with tiny green leaves among the florets. It seems to be a case of proliferation, which I have often found, especially in Dutch Clover. Along the tow-path of the Aire and Calder Canal, I once collected a whole series : (a) in some plants the Standard of each floret had reverted to a small green trefoil leaf on a short petiole. (b) in other plants the wings were of trefoil form, (c) in others again the two halves of the pod had become the folded middle leaflet with the other two expanded on either side. In many plants the calyx only had become leafy.

NOTES AND

OBSERVATIONS

253

This State is sometimes mistakenly called viviparous, but careful examination will show that the seeds are not germinating on the parent plant. Proliferation occurs in other plants besides the clovers. As most botanists know, this is a reversion to the original leafy terminal shoot from which the petals, sepals, stamens and stigma were primitively evolved.

J. C. N. W I L L I S .

SEPULTARIA SUMNERI (Brk.) Che. Mr. Boreham has found this fungus again (see Trans. V I I I , part 4, pp. 192 and 233). In March, 1957, he found it growing under the live stump of the Cherry Plum, Prunus cerasifera Ehrh. near the Glen in Barton Road, Bury St. Edmunds. This was 16 yards from the nearest Cedar with a spread of branches of ten yards.

He kept a specimen for 48 hours in a closed bag in a dark cold outhouse, and when he opened this there issued " a dance of whitish vapour of beads of seconds degree in the sunlight ".

He blew into the cup to remove debris and each time after a pause of a second a thin cloud arose.

Dr. R. W. G. Dennis gave him the following explanation.

T h e moisture is due to spore discharge. T h e asci which line the inner surface of the cup discharge their spores by trigger pressure, firing them through an opening at the top of the ascus, like shots from a gun.

When a ripe apothecium is kept undisturbed in an enclosed space the pressure builds up inside a large number of asci until any slight change in temperature or moisture content of the air or slight shaking of the apothecium causes all the asci to burst at once. T h e small holes in the hymenium visible to the eye must have been due to slight insect damage. T h e top of the ascus is too small to be seen by the unaided eye and they are closed by lids until the moment of discharge.

A CRAG SEA U R C H I N (Eckinocyamus pusillus). For many years only a few specimens were included in the Ipswich Museum collections. One from the Coralline Crag, Sutton, the remainder from Red Crag at Walton-on-Naze and Aldeby. None appears to be in sundry private collections examined. DĂźring the last decade specimens collected indicate the former abundance of this species of Echinoderm in the Red Crag Sea. T h e tests seem to occur in greater numbers in the Crag at Alderton than at any known site. A few have been found at Brightwell, Foxhall (Monument Farm and Purdis Farm), Ramsholt and Stratton Hall, Levington.

T h e species was not found during the recent investigations at Beggars' Hollow, Ipswich, nor had it previously been noted in the Ipswich area. It is evident, however, that the tests are much more abundant than was generally implied from the numbers of

254

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OBSERVATIONS

specimens in collections and that more would be found if a careful search were made. Specimens vary in size from a little over an eighth to nearly half an inch in length ; they are oval to sub-pentagonal in plan and vary from a thin flattish to a low dorne shape, from a lateral view.

H. E. P. SPENCER. T H E SPOTTED ORCHIS (Orchis maculata) is plentiful in a wood at Barrow where the white flowered specimens outnumber the pink by about three to one.

D I T T A N D E R (Lepidium latifolium).

A small patch of this plant has survived after the road improvements at Tollgate Bridge, Bury St. Edmunds. (Trans. X, pt. 2, p. 172). Mr. Boreham says in reply to an inquiry that he has not observed any marked spread of Saxifraga granulata in the parishes on which he keeps close Observation around Bury, but he has observed for the first time at Fornham St. Martin three plants on the bank of a newly-made ditch. He had not previously seen it in the meadow now partly taken by road improvements. It has always been common on the golf links and in a meadow at Fornham Road.

There are two small patches of it on West Stow Heath and these never appear to spread.

Other recorders have remarked that it seems to be on the increase or newly arrived in their neighbourhoods.

Mr. Mitchell recorded it for Battisford—a few plants (Trans.

IX, pt. 1, p. 55).

FLATFORD

MILL

FIELD

CENTRE

A number of Carnegie Bursaries are available for members of local Natural History Societies reducing the normal weekly charge of 7 gns. by 2\ gns. FĂźll details can be obtained from the Warden, Fiatford Mill, East Bergholt.

T h e following course might interest members.

Easter Bird Course, 2 - 9 April.

Freshwater Biology Course, 4 - 1 1 June.

Natural History Course for Amateurs, 2 - 9 July.

Elementary Field Botany Course, 27 Aug. - 3 Sept.

Autumn Ecology Course, 8 - 1 5 October.