A Naturalists' Biography: Mr John Davey Hoy, 1797-1839

LUMINOUS

CENTIPEDS.

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is remarkable for emitting a vivid phosphoric light in the dark ; this is produced by a viscid secretion that, when adhering to the fingers as I have observed, gives light independently of the animal. This species frequents beds ; its object in doing so may be to search for Bugs [Cimex lectularius, L.] and other insects that annoy us during repose " (Bridgewater Treatise on the Power of God 1835, ii, 69 ; Ed. Bohn 1853, ii, 52). It has not appeared upstairs in my house !

Little attention has been paid such luminous Myiapods since 1840, when Knights gave us his exaggerated picture of G. electricus in Animated Nature, ii, figure 3756, until Dr. Brade-Birks discovered the luminosity's composition in 1919 (Ann. and Mag. Xat. Hist. v., 1920, pp. 1-30). T h e n both sexes at all ages of at least seven species, including the above two, were found to emit such luciferin upon Stimulation by an electric current applied directly to the animals' bodies by electrodes laid by contact-wires from an induction-coil in the dark, whereon direct photographs were obtained by placing the body on a film with the sensitised surface downwards. T h e fluid given off from both sides of the venter is viscous, colourless, smelly and acid in reaction, containing all essentials for producing light and forming crystals.

Its purpose is certainly protective, since the natural exsertion is far less when the animal is simply handled than when it is attacked

by Ants : Carabids were not, unfortunately, introduced.

A NATURALIST'S

BIOGRAPHY:

MR. JOHN DAVEY HOY,

BY WALTER A .

1797-1839.

BROOK.

IHERE is one person, that I do not find named in the Retrospect of buffolk Naturalists (p. 62 supra), of whom we should like to know more : Hoy of Stoke-Nayland, who was so interested in bird"te, Dr. Laver writes to the Hon. See. early this year. It was a happy thought, though unfortunately little light is recoverable upon the scientific attainments of our subject. T h e family name hrst emerges in Suffolk annals scattered through a half-dozen Y'lages among those of the 1524 Subsidy ; and appears to be uerived from the Welsh adjective, hoyw—alert, sprightly, lively, gay—or possibly fr 3m Flemish, hui—a hoy—in this case suggesting some sea-faring origin a couple of centuries earlier, though certainly not in this County.

Restricting our enquiry to the Stoke-by-Nayland family, the eariiest reference is to that John, born in the parish during 1739, 17ATA d l e d i n 1 7 9 9 (Torlesse, S - b y - N . , p. 85), who married in V M A n " Strutt of Boxford (Mar. Lic. Archd. Sudbury, p. 289 /2) ; ne was bürn in 1734 and died " at her son's house, Walthamstow,"

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in 1815 (Ipsw. Journal, 2 Dec. : pace Torlesse). T h e i r children were John, 1766-94; Sarah, 1771-91; Ann, 1772-89; and Elizabeth, 1773-87 ; this J o h n married, b u t his wife Sarah died on 30 January 1791 at the early age of twenty.

T h e accumulated records mention another John, often confused with the above ; he was born during 1768-9 and lived at Lower House in Stoke, where he died on 13 February 1840, aged 71 {Ipsw. Journ. 22 Feb.). H e had married Sarah Davey of Dorchester, who died at Giffards Hall in Stoke, aged 74, in 1843 (St. Jas. Chron. 21 M a r c h ) ; it was this John H o y who "took down Stoke Priory " (Torlesse, p. 3) and, in 1829, built a handsome mansion one mile west of the church at Stoke {White, Direct.

1844, 567).

T h e i r family seems to embrace at least seven children, of whom our subject was eldest and heir. Of his uncle it is said, in this parish, " part of the soil belongs to several smaller proprietors [than Mannock and Rowley], the largest of whom is Isaac H o y of Stoke Priory, esquire " (White, I.e.) ; b u t his ante1874 death is obscure. T h e second son, William, married during 1841 in Norwich Helen Theresea, youngest daughter of George Gardiner of T h o r p e Hamlet there, esquire (Ipsw. Journ. 8 May), and in 1844 he is described as a farmer of Lower House in Stoke (E.A. Queries, ns. x, p. 244), though doubtless identical with that William Hoy, esquire, who occupied t h e Priory in 1874 (White, ed. ann. cit.), was still there in 1877 (Torlesse) and owned the land though not resident so late as 1885 (White, ed. ann. cit.).

William had at least five sisters : two spinsters, who died twenty years old in 1824-5 ; two married to husbands, both surnamed Lescher, in 1829—c. 1835 ; and Jane, who in 1829 married Lieut.

Charles W i t h a m , R . N . (Ipsw. Journ. 21 Nov. ; Unit. Serv. 'Journ.

1830, p. 135).

O u r subject, their uncle, is M r . John Davey Hoy of Stoke-bvNayland, born during 1797. " H e devoted his life to t h e study of Natural History, on both the Norfolk and Suffolk coasts, and abroad in G e r m a n y and Holland. He must have been an excellent naturalist; b u t unfortunately, beyond a few published notes, he left no written memorial of his work. His collection of birds is still in existence : T h e Southend M u s e u m collection, a very noted one, was formed by M r . J. D. H o y of Stoke-by-Nayland in the twenties and thirties of last Century, so most of t h e birds are over one h u n d r e d years old " (Birds of Suffolk 1932, pp. 22-3).

H e is mentioned more than once in the notes to m y edition ot Gilbert White's " Seiborne," published by Chambers of Edinburgh in 1833 ; for example, at page 81 where a long note occurs concerning t h e Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus, L.), Dr. Laver adds. It is unusual to find one son alone, in so large a family, with scientific tastes ; nor is this all, for a strong b r a n c h of Hoys was then living at t h e adj acent Higham Lodge, descended froni M r . Robert Hoy who built that house, where he (Davy's Add.

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MS. in Brit. Mus. 19136) was living with his wife Marianne in 1801 (EAQ. ns.x, p. 244). One of our subject's relatives was that Isaac Hoy of Higham Lodge in Suffolk, esquire, whom the King nominated on 8 June, 1835 to be of his Majesty's Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms, an office he vacated the same year (Gazette, 9 June and 1 Dec.).

Nowadays Mr. J. D. Hoy is " almost forgotten, as he died young and wrote very little. Babington of Cockfield said practically nothing about him, and I do not think he could have known him.

The Zoologist was after his time ; but the early Annais and Mag. Xat. Hist. might give clues, though I think I looked u p all papers in them bv Hoy : I did not come across any obituary notice " (Ticehurst, in lit. 14 Jan. 1933). His Birds devolved in his sisters' possession and were " in excellent condition, when I saw them at Mrs. Lescher's at Boyles Court, Brentwood, in 1912; the collection contains a number of birds from Aldeburgh, Orford and Breydon Water, etc., but there are few data to any of the specimens, although there was a MS. catalogue of it " (id., Birds Suff. 22-3). A relative informs us that the immediate cause of John's early death was a fever, contracted while literally in harness, observing birds in a marshy part of Holland, near Boisle-Duc : thus " d i e d on the 15th inst., in his forty-third year, John Davey Hoy Esquire of Stoke by Nayland, in this County " on 15 October 1839 (Ipsw. Journ. 19th). That " t h e late M r .

John Hoy " did not confine his attention entirely to Birds is shown by a note on " Suffolk L e p i d o p t e r a " by R. B. Postans of 12 South Square, Grays Inn (Naturalist 1858, p. 259), who refers to his discovery, upon one occasion, of larvae of Leucophasia sinapis, L., abundantly in Raydon Wood, where he had also once obtained thirteen larvae of Apatura Iris, L., " after a very hard day's work," indicating keenness.

John never succeeded to the property, for his father outlived His younger brother William, who persisted tili at least not only came into the family estate, but into that of his uncle whose widow Martha died, aged nearly ninety, during • s ' l " a t t h e residence of the Revd. Mr. Lane, missionary rector ot Stoke-by-Nayland, after sixteen years' sojourn with h i m " U artndge in EAD Times, 7 Feb. 1925). It is not without interest 0 add that the Priory now belongs to the father of another Naturalist, our Member M r . Engleheart, who teils us the title1 eeds shed no further light upon the matter, though a barn aoor-post perpetuates the memory of presumably the above ,, f ^ a T n T ! h l s wife Martha by bearing to-day the inscription I / M - H O Y / B I L T / 1830." l

H RPLE E m p e r o r a Jp h u f NOWADAYS.—One dav at noon, within before or after 30 August last, I saw a specimen of Apatura

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Iris,L., disporting itself among theflowersnear the " Wilderness " in the Lower Arboretum, towards the north end of Ipswich.

My attention was attracted by the Butterfly's large size ; and now I am entirely satisfied respecting its identity, for I obtained a clear view of the wing-markings and at once compared them with examples in this Museum. I could detect no purple sheen on its wings.—H. E. P. SPENCER, The Museum, Ipswich ; 20 October 1933. [The specimen was surely a female on account of the lack of purple sheen, its lowflightand lateness of its occurrence, for July is the usual month of perfect existence.

Eighty vears ago Purple Emperors were too " common in oak woods in various parts of the County " (Dr. Bree in Nat. 1857, p. 256) to be worth localising ; they grew rarer (Entom. iv, p. 120), and during July 1859 were localised in Bentley Woods (Fison in Ent. Wkly. Int. vi, p. 133). By 1890 the species was still considered not uncommon near Ipswich ; though the sole one or two of which we have exact data was seen by us on the 8th and netted on 24th July 1893 in Bentley Woods, where it continued to occur round the tops of tall oaks during a few succeeding summers, but has not been noticed anywhere in Suffolk of recent years.—Ed.]

Of how difficult it frequently is to be conscientiously positive of the identity of even the most conspicuous insects, when flitting about on the wing, I have had recent proof by experience. One day in June 1931, a peculiarly large and broad Butterfly was observed, that I instantly thought and still think must be Anosia (Danaus) plexippus, Linn., hovering about theflowersin Framlingham garden. To rush indoors for a net took no more than a moment, but I was unable to confirm the suspected determination by capturing the specimen for examination. However, our record of A. plexippus (Trans, i, p. 30), which I had forgotte at least partially removes my hesitancy in placing so inconclusive an Observation upon record, No less than twenty specimens (Entom. 1933, p. 241) have been noted in Britain during the present year.—C. H. S. VINTER.

THE FISHES OF SUFFOLK.

BY DR. DUDLEY W. COLLINGS, M.B., M.R.C.S., F.Z.S.

sole county List of Pisces, that by J. T. C u n n i n g h a m printed in the 1911 Victoria History of Suffolk, enumerates 119 species but includes a good many to which we then had no better claim than the fact that they had occurred off southern Norfolk.

The author was not a local man, and relied almost entirely upon the Norfolk Naturalists' Society for his records : adding, for the THE