Notes and Observations 13 Part 4

NOTES A N D OBSERVATIONS (Eptesicus serotinus) AT LEISTON. On 5th March, 1966, a moribund male Serotine bat was found crawling on the ground in a garden at Leiston. It was very thin, little more than skin and bones, was not strong enough to bite and refused to eat food when put into its mouth. An examination of the roof loft of the house in the garden of which the bat was found showed bat droppings but no bats.

SEROTINE BAT

D. WILSON, Leiston Modern School.

PIGMY SHREW (Sorex minutus) IN HOUSE. I have not infrequently caught shrews in the house here, in the cellar and on the ground floor. I was surprised though to catch a pigmy shrew in the attic in February, 1966, a " Mount Everest " of a climb for so small an animal.

MRS. E. K. HADINGHAM, Walsham Hall, Mendham.

GREY SQUIRREL (Sciurus carolinensis) IN N O R T H - E A S T SUFFOLK. A Grey Squirrel was shot at Benacre in March, 1966, and two have been seen at Sotterly this spring.

LT. COL. M. BARNE, Sotterly Hall.

M A M M A L SOCIETY'S NATIONAL DISTRIBUTION SCHEME.

In the

Transactions Vol. 13, Part 2, p.90 the attention of members was drawn to the above scheme and I have received a few records which have been passed on. I would like to remind members that all records, of any mammal, however common, are required, e.g., of hedgehogs seen killed on the road or even of molehills.

Members who want more details are referred to Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 13 : 90 or if it is more convenient they can write direct to me.

CRANBROOK, Great Glemham House, Saxmundham.

ANALYSIS OF EGGS. As a number of eggs failed to hatch in my nest-boxes at Great Finborough during the 1965 season and many young failed to fledge, I forvvarded eggs of blue and great tits to the B.T.O. and R.S.P.B. Committee on Toxic Chemicals for analysis.

Results showed that while pesticide residues were present in the eggs in small quantities, there was no evidence to suggest that the amounts would have prevented them from hatching.

E . J.

COPPING.

SOME RECENT GEOLOGICAL FINDS. T h e list of mammalian fauna from the Stour Valley Stutton Brickearth continues to grow.

A recent find at Harkstead consists of three milk teeth of a young rhinoceros. T h e teeth are from the lower jaw and consequently it is not possible to determine the species.

222 Transactions of the Suffolk Naturalists',

Vol. 13, Part 4

A ferruginous concretion presumably from the Stutton Brickearth, which was picked up on the foreshore, contains an impression of a leaf from a deciduous tree. This has not yet been determined but if it is possible to do so I will send a further note on it. Fossil leaves are of exceptional rarity, but this is the second example within about a year. The first find consists of a well preserved leaf of Oak-like form in septaria from the London Clay.

About forty years ago a portion of a tibia determined as belonging to an early member of the Bear family was discovered in the Red Crag at Bramford. With a period of three million years involved one considers it fortunate if a small recognisable fragment is found in these days of mechanical excavators. A new find is a portion of the root of a tooth which is too fragmentary for positive determination. It is about the size of a bear canine, and although cetacean remains also occur at Bramford, a vertical section of the tooth is more like a carnivor canioe. jj. j? p Spfncer.

Some Breck Flora. These are some of the more intertsting species shown to Members by Mr. P. J. O. Trist, assisted by Mrs. Ruth Clark on the Societv's Breckland, Excursion of 4th June, 1966.

On the south end of Icklingham Planes : Medicago falcata, M. X varia, Saxifraga granulata, Thiymus drucei, Silene otites, Allium vineale, Phleum arenarium, Koeleria gracitles, Vulpia myuros, Helictotrichon pubescens, H. prateune, Bromus lepidus, var. micromollis.

At How Hill : Euphorbia esula, Alyssum alyssoides, Sanguisorba officinalis, Vulpia ambigua, Bromus erectus, Scleranthus annuus, Silene conica, Astragalus danicus.

On Foxhole Heath : Festuca ovina var. hispidula, F. glauca var. glauca, F. glauca var. caesia.

Mrs. Clark took home and revived a miserable little dried-up plant which could not be recognised on the spot and found it to be Teesdalia nudicaulis. p j q Trist.

Thorn Apple has cropped up again in my correspondence : Mr. Peter Northeast writes that he had discussed it, when it turned up near Newmarket this summer, with Mr. Lousley, who suggested that it came over in cheap corn seed for chickens from the Mediterranean. [I find it hard to believe that the exporters would risk prosecution for including seeds that are well-known to be poisonous.] Then I had a letter from Mr. D. R. Crawford of

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OBSERVATIONS

Chelmsford, who had seen the plant near the drive to a farmyard at Aldham, where a lady had shown him a plant in her garden— the flowers being of a deep purple—possibly not the species D. stramonium.

So I ventured to write again to Mr. Deane of Stafford Allen & Sons, the Medicinal Herb Growers at Long Melford.

They say they have been harvesting their own seeds since the early 1900's, but do not know where they got it originally. At the time of the controversy in " The Times " (October, 1959) Mr. W. T . Stearne of the Department of Botany at the British Museum referred Mr. Deane to an article in German by Kurt Wein and to Mr. Melville of Kew. These two authorities suggest South America as the natural habitat. [I would suggest India or West Indies, for dhatura is an Indian (Sanscrit) word, and the plant and its medicinal properties were known to Arabian physicians who introduced and cultivated the plant around the Eastern Mediterranean before Europeans ever knew of the existence of the New World.]

Stafford Allen say there is the possibility that it has been grown in " Herbai Gardens " of pharmacists during the late 19th Century in many parts of the country. [Much earlier than that, I think, for Gerard in 1597 wrote of obtaining some seed from Constantinople and dispersing it through this land.]

Probably, I think, these casual plants around Suffolk come from Stafford Allen's place, dropped bv birds.

J.

C.

N.

WILLIS.

F I L M AND S L I D E PROJECTORS AND ALL E Q U I P M E N T FOR M E E T I N G S .

Mrs. Eric Walker (nde Vulliamy) and her husband have returned to Suffolk and started a branch of their London business, projectors and all equipment for showing slides and films, at Long Reach, Nacton and are making their home there. Mrs. Walker's connection with this Society goes back many years when as a very small girl her grandfather, the late L. Hastings Vulliamy of Cauldwell Hall brought her with him on all our Excursions.