News for Naturalists 3 Part 2

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NEWS FOR NATURALISTS. IT has been suggested that, as certain of the paragraphs hitherto inserted under the heading " Observations " e.g. A Forgotten Suffolk Naturalist at page 99, do not strictly belong to such a category, News derived from a less direct source should be preserited to Members severally. For insertion here we hope to receive /Veras from a yet more extensive number of Contributors.—Editor.

AN account of this Society's attempt to stem the County Councils' insane lust for Tree-felling throughout Suffolk will be found in the Ipswich daily paper on the last day of March, April and May this vear. Such Trees seem outside the Suffolk Preservation Society's orbit. They have nothing to do with motor accidents : alone ' it's pace that kills.'

DR. Hopwood of the British Natural History Museum is assembling as large a series as is obtainable of fossil Horse and Hipparion teeth from both the Cromer Forest-bed and our various F. Anglian Crags. He is anxious to be accorded shortperiod loans for the more satisfactory determination of all such specimens.

PRACTICALLY no doubt is entertainable that the alleged Sea Serpent, reported off Eccles in July, consisted of nothing but a long line of volant Scoters, Melanitta nigra, which is the commonest of our sea-ducks and occurs off Corton at that time of year in large flocks.

IT is gratifying to hear that the Lowestoft municipality is at length taking enough interest in such Natural Objects as it already possesses to provide a good cabinet of 20-inch Square drawers for the preservation of that collection of Lepidoptera which has so long reposed under the counter in its Carnegie Library. And the more so, to be assured that this collection's rearrangement is entrusted to the quite capable hands of our Member, Mr. Jack Goddard. It comprises many nice Butterflies and Moths, some Crimson Underwings and two old Large Coppers ; but unfortunatelv the data are meagre or lacking, as its author was the eccentric Singleton Smith, a local school-master, of whom amusing tales are told. When conveving by train a notvery-recently dead cat, destined as bait for Purple Emperor Butterflies, he was positive thathedidnotsharehisfellow-travellers

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perception of a disagreeable odour. Nor could he quite remember just where he had stood his gun, when questioned by a respectful keeper who escorted the shooting-party into which he had inadvertently stepped when trespassing!

THE Brees were a family of excellent Naturalists eighty years ago : four of them figure in the Entomologist's Annual of that time. T h e best was certainly Dr. Charles Robert Bree, who for long practised in Stowmarket: as a copious contributor to both the Weekly Intelligencer and Morris' Naturalist, he was among the leading British Entomologists of the last Century and it was at his well-known address, ' Stricklands ' there, that he vvrote the ever-useful History of the Birds of Europe, not Observed in the British Isles, published in four volumes during 1863. T h i s year we pilgrimaged to Stricklands, now occnpied by an auctioneer, and were delighted to find it intact, though much cribbed, cabined and confined by new brick-and-mortar with its frontage masked by a hideous block of flats. But the historic garden, wherein the Doctor took his Bedstraw Hawkmoth, is still extensive.

MR. Platten reported on 23 January last a Blackbird ( T u r d u s merula, L . ) just found at Creeting Peter, leg-ringed with the legend ' Vogelwarte Helsoland 753 120 Germania,' which your Hon. Secretary advertised in the local Daily Press.

Replies were numerous, showing much interest in ringing. M r . Drake of Ipswich wrote that he had recently returned no less then eight such rings to Germany, that he had nine more to report later, and had himself ringed some sevent} birds during the first month of 1936. T h e district fishes inspector, M r . G . T . Atkinson of Lowestoft Fisheries Office (9 Battery Green Road) heard on 8 February from Dr. Drost, director of Heligoland Birdwatching Station, that the Creeting ' A m s e l ( T u r d u s merula)' had been ringed on 4 M a y 1935 at Suhlingen in Hanover : this is some twenty miles south of Bremen, and only 350 due east from Creeting.—Major Mussenden-Leathes reported on 23rd of the preceding December a Starling (Sturnus vulgaris, L . ) at Earls Soham, ringed with a German plate : but the number is not quoted.

A most scintillating bevy of heartiest congratulations is due in a wide circle this year. T h e earliest go out to our Member, Professor Sir T h o m a s Hudson and Lady Beare, the learned authoj- of much Beetle-Iore and finally in 1930 the comprehensive ' Catalogue of the recorded Coleoptera of the British Isles.' He writes to u s : " We celebrated our Golden Wedding on 21 December, and had a very exciting time for a week after it. T h e functions were concluded by a big reception we gave to some three hundred friends in the Edinburgh University great library :

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wedding cake, weddirig march and all the usual accompaniments liad to be gone through, except the actual ritual; but, as the bishop and vicar were there, it was evidently thought that the ceremony held fifty years ago still remains valid ! We were inundated with letters, presents, flowers, fruit and telegrams in gold envelopes ; in fact it was all very charming and pleasant, but we are glad to be able to settle down again to our usual quiet life. . . . . I spent a week in September 1935 at Blickling Hall, and made one excursion into Suffolk as far as Southwold."

The second are accorded to Captain Pitt Miller, upon his enterprising motor-trip from Melton across the Sahara, through Nigeria and both French and Belgian Congo states to Nairobi, where he and his single companion arrived salvi et sani about the end of last March, after a three months' excursion. We sent him a chit on 30 December last to add to his baggage all the interesting lnsects he could find crawling or Aying along the Equator, and have high hopes of a satisfactory result. Our Member had recently moved to Melton from Kyson Point, where he most beneficially interested himself in the local boy-scouts and all manly exercises.

A M O N G our Society's most adventurous spirits is its Mammals Recorder, Mr. Henry Andrews. Reference to his travels in Syria is made at Trans, ii, p. cxiv ; and a vivid account of his ' Visit to the Monastery of Mar Saba ' and its scenery appears in the Burv Free Press of 21 March 1936. This year, Mr. Andrews launched himself into the sterile wilds of Norwegian Lapland on 23 July and recounts his ' Hitting the Trail in the Land of the Midnight S u n ' in the same all too ephemeral newspaper on 21 September; but, beyond a Bear or two, little space is accorded Natural Science, which is supplemented by him in lit. (dat. cit.) : " I noticed a common Cuckoo at Masi, Magpies around every settlement though it be but a single cabin, White-tailed Sea-eagles, common Redshank, Hoodie Crows and Redwing, both of which come to Suffolk for the winter. I was very sorrv to miss the Mammals ; saw only one Lemming though their runs were everywhere, and a single specimen of our Scottish mountain hare. I would give something to have met with the makers of all the tracks 1 observed ! " PERHAPS it will interest our Members, writes C-ol. Hawley of Sibton on 23 October, to hear something about the Annual Exhibition of the South London Natural History Society [whereof Mr. Chfford Craufurd, with whom we collected this year in the New Forest, is Hon. Secretary], which was held last night. I thought it the best show they have had since I joined the Society.

Unfortunately I cannot teil you anything concerning the Coleoptera and other orders, but there were some fine

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exhibits amongst them. T h e grandest thing there was a magnificent series of Catocala fraxini, bred by two men who took the female at sugar last year in Kent. In fact, Kent seemed to supply a high proporüon of the exhibits, including a Polia furcifera that was taken on a post by dav ! A large number of Leucania L-album were shown, with some perfect Plusia chryson which emerged from larvse taken at Stockbridge in Hants.

Another exhibit was a seiies of Boletobia fuliginaria ; also were shown Aletia albipuncta, Heliothis peltigera, Orthosia ocellaris from Barton Mills [where Mr. Burton took it commonly last September], Conistra rabiginea, etc.

The Meeting was rather over-crowded which was a pity, as one could not devote the time one wished to examining the exhibits.

THE great majority of the late Mr. Ernest Elliott's collection of British Insects was amassed in Suffolk, where he had almost annually worked upon the subject for füll forty years, though usually during only odd fortnights. Most series of his excellent Beetle-cabinet, in particular, showed specimens from our County; and he had repeatedlv stated his intention of willing it to its native soil for the use of local students, especially our own Members. He wrote from his St. Leonards home to your Ilon. Secretary : " I am thinking of making a new Will. Would you [Bury or Ipswich museums] like the cabinets of British Beetles, Äfrican Butterflies and Foreign Beetles ? I hope to mend when the weather does ; I am slowly recovering, but not well enough to go away yet. To-day, Sunday 26 January 1936, I am going as far as the garden to give peanuts to the Tits, for the first time out since 24 December. I can make no definite plans for the future : when well enough, I propose to inflict myself on you for a visit." But no new Will had been drawn when he died six weeks later. The whole of his British Collections were given by his brother-in-law and executor, Evelyn H.V.Elliott of Braidlea, Ditchling, Sussex, in accordance with a deplorable ' expressed wish ' of the testator, to the handy Hastings Museum wherein our Members must henceforth seek Suffolk beetles, Hemiptera, Aculeates, Lepidoptera, etc., besides Ernest Elliott's European coleoptera, Indian moths and African butterflies.

That he was at all interested in Hastings Museum was indeed news to us. No more than his Atlantean insects and Tropic beetles came to Suffolk ; these are open to Members' examination at Monks Soham House.