Collecting Macro-Lepidoptera in North-east Suffolk

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SUFFOLK NATURALISTS A CENTURY AGO

there, in order to encourage collectors. Ipswich has seen such a project come to fruition ; but Bungay could not now produce a dozen Botanists.

T o some Member of this Bungay society we probably, as Henslow & Skepper's Flora of Suffolk did not appear tili 1860, owe the anonymous list of 46 species of " Rare Plants found in Suffolk " that is appended at page 20 to third edition (Woodbridge 1829) of John Kirby's ' Travellers Guide'. Hind does not quote i t ; and it seems worth perpetuating here, in the order as printed without authors' names, but omitting localities there indicated :— Anemone pulsatilla, Arenaria peploides, Artemisia campestris et ?naritima, Aristolochia clematitas, Asplenium rnta-muraria, Atropa belladonna, Bunias cakile, Brassica campestris, Carduus acaulis et erosphoris, Chara flexilis, Chelidonium glaucium, Cerastium umbellatum, Cucubalus otites, Cicuta virosa, Erysimum chieranthoides, Fritillaria meleagris, Frankenia leevis, Fucus siliquosus, Genista pilosa, Gentiana campestris, Inula crithmoides, yellow-berried Ilex aqmfolium, Leonurus cardiaca, Marchantia hemispliarica, Medicago polymorpha, CEnanthe pimpinelloides, Ophrys nidus-avis, Orobanche camosa, Panicum sanguinala, Pisum maritimum, Rieda natans, Sedum Anglicum, Scleranthus perennis, Sambucus ebulus, Silene noctiflora, Scrophularia vernalis, Stratiotes Aloides, Trifolium glomeratum et scabrum, Tillaa muscosa, Veronica triphylles et verna, and Urtica pilulifera the Roman Nettle.

COLLECTING MACRO-LEPIDOPTERA NORTH-EAST SUFFOLK. B Y THE BARON DE W O R M S ,

IN

Ph.D., M.A., A.I.C.

to the very great kindness of Mr. & Mrs. P. J . Burton, I have enjoyed two very pleasant visits to Lowestoft in 1946.

I reached that coast town on 18 April, after nearly three weeks of continuous sunshine, which extended over mv sojourn there. My chief objective was Vanessa polychloros, L., that had been appearing in the Eastern Counties fairly commonly. T h e next day M r . Burton and I set out under ideal conditions for Fritton Lake, where he had recently seen a Large Tortoiseshell. None appeared ; but we found many small larvse of Limenitis Sibylla, L., just out .of hibernation and nearly always on the sparsely growing bowers of Honeysuckle round the base of Alders : they were quite easy to detect on the stems [and later abundant there.—P.J.B., 29 April]. One larva of Hylophila bicolorana, Fsl., still in its brown stage, was beaten from Oak. Afternoon took us to Frostenden, and no sooner had we descended into the hollow of the brick-pit

THANKS

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than a Polychloros shot up ; on Aubretia in a cottage garden I saw a second, and netted it on an Apple-tree : quite a thrill, the first British example I had taken ! As we walked along the edge of a Wangford marsh another got up, a worn female, which I caught on a dead Oak. T h r e e were in a gravel-pit nearer Henham, of which Mr. Burton netted two with agile strokes. While having tea, we caught sight of another female sunning itself on a Blythburgh shed. A short time in early evening was spent on Southwold sandhills, where several larvte of Caradrina elymi, Tr., were found at base of stems of Lyme Grass Elymus arenarius, L. ; they were of fat and fleshy-looking appearance, and made their presence known by small holes and withered central leaf.

Weather conditions were even more ideal on 20 April, when we motored to Monks Soham House, around which Lycaena argiolus, L., was Aying in numbers over an Ivy bower. Mr. Claude Morley accompanied us upon a more southern expedition to Coddenham chalk-pit, where M r . Burton took a further Polychloros, and we saw Vanessa c-album, L., with many V.Io and Pieris napi, L. We proceeded for the afternoon to Barking Wood ; here appeared five Polychloros, V.Io was in great abundance, with a few late Brephos notha, Hb.* and we returned, after tea at Monks Soham, to Lowestoft well satisfied with the day's hunting. T h e next two days' bright sunshine was considerably tempered by north-west air on the former and south-east on latter. A coast-marsh near Kessingland on 21 April yielded several larvae of Senta maritima, Tausch., in dead and rather large stems of Phragmites communis, Trin., always in the open section above the topmost j o i n t : they are brown, somewhat stumpy and apparently feed on the inner lining of the Reed, as well as upon other Insects and larvae.

Later we found more Sibylla larvae at Fritton Lake ; and concluded the day at Southwold, where another close search for C. elymi secured about twenty larvae in all. On 22 April we confined our attentions to Blythburgh Wood ; but a strong easterly wind was blowing and few Insects Aying. However, it was very pleasant W a l k i n g through this fine Stretch of timber and, i n a small marsh, we found a few more S. maritima larvae. DĂźring this period cold winds precluded night Operations ; two female Polychloros, sleeved out in the garden by Mr. Burton, obliged us with no ova ; and on 23 April I returned south, after a most delightful and very successful visit.

M y second descent upon this part of the world happened exactly three months later: I reached Lowestoft on 19 July, which evening seemed so propitious that M r . Burton and I visited *Also n c t e d t h a t a f t e r n o o n w e r e t h e B u t t e r f l i e s Cardamines; a n d Rubi, w i t h G e o m e t e r P e t r a r i a a n d a score of Vanessa c-album. A n d at C o d d e n h a m in t h e m o r n i n g Urtica, argiolus, rhanni a n d a single Hesperia malvce, L . , w h i c h last, COL. HAWLEY s t a t e s , d i d n o t a p p e a r tili 1 M a y a r o u n d S a l i s b u r y . —Ed.

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COLLECTING MACRO-LEPIDOPTERA I N N . E . SUFFOLK

attractive-looking clumps of L y m e Grass near the sea-wall north of the town : here wc found several imagines of C. elymi at rest and took two on the wing. I spent the 20th morning in a Reed-bed near Normanston Park lake, and found many of their stems to contain pupae of Nonagria geminipuncta, Hw., easily discernible by the characteristic window ; here, too, was the marsh form of Zygaena trifolii, Esp., which is a distinct subspecies and might even be found to attain specific rank.

In the afternoon we prospected round the Yarmouth north denes, but most of the best Lyme Grass clumps had been barbed-wired off. On a shed outside the Fritton tea-rooms we later found three empty pupa-cases of Polychloros, evidently of the previous year. We then proceeded to the Herringfleet fir-woods, where a half-hour's search yielded a fine pair of Sphinx pinastri, L. and two freshly emerged females, of which one was quite low on a large trunk of Pinns sylvestris, L. : apparently this splendid Insect has become very numerous in the north-east corner of Suffolk.

T h a t evening we reached Southwold at about 8.30 G . T . and at once put up M r . Burton's pieces of cork, fixed to the top of bamboo-canes, to act as sugaring posts ; these we placed at intervals along the sand-dunes. Soon after dusk we began to search the Marram (Psamma arundinacea, Hst.) and Lyme grasses' blooms, when it became evident a really good night, windless and quite over-cast, was in stรถre.

Insects began Coming freely at 9 p.m. and kept us very busy with torch and boxes tili nearly midnight. Our chief quarry C. elymi was fairly numerous though, perhaps, not so common as expected, for we saw only about two dozen. An agreeable surprise was the comparative abundance of Hadena abjecta, Hb., of which we secured nearly thirty ; this Insect is, as a rule, by no means frequent and found only, as here, in the vicinity of salt-marshes.

Melanchra dissimilis, Knh., was fairly numerous, with a few Aletia littoralis, Ct. and Lithosia complana, L., along with plenty of Aletia lithargyrea, Esp., &c., and one Caradrina umbra, H f n . Sugar was a failure and car-lights abortive tili we reached Kessingland Dam marshes, where there came Lithosia complana, L., Inrideola, Zk., griseola, H b . and Hydriomena dotata, L. This night well rewarded our efforts.

T h e 21 July was warm and partly sunny ; we again searched the Kessingland Reeds, which yielded further N. geminipuncta with one N. arundineta (dissoluta, Treit.), distinguished from the former by the pupa being head downwards and lower in the stem.

Near Frostenden in the afternoon was a live Polychloros pupa under overlapping tiles of a wall, and further search showed a parasitised second, with a freshly emerged female Xanthorhoe quadrifasciaria, Clk. ; in the brick-pits skirting the wood, many Butterflies, mostly in fresh condition, were on the wing : Hyperanthus, Semele, Tithonus.

Near Kessingland marshes we flushed

COI.LECTING MACRO-LEPIDOPTERA

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,a bevy of Leptomeris immutata, L., in the afternoon ; and there at dusk saw Ophiusa pastinum, Tr., further L. immutata, many Phragmatobia fuliginosa, L., Nudaria senex, Hb., and, careeringover Reeds, numerous Leucania impura, Hb. I returned home the following day with a bag of over eighty Macro-lepidoptera ; and must express my indebtedness to Mr. Burton for introducing me to new and interesting localities containing several choice and loeal species.

20 August 1946.

THE ASCOMYCETES OF SUFFOLK.

BY ARTHUR MAYFIELD,

F.L.S.

THE Ascomycetes are a large and important group of Fungi, distinguished by producing their spores within globular or clubshaped cells, called Asci. In most cases the ascospores number eight in each ascus. Some of the. species, such as the Morels and Cup Fungi, attain a fair size but the majority are very minute.

T h e Ascomycetes are divided into two sub-groups :—(a) T h e PYRENOMYCETES, whose asci are developed inside a spherical or flask-shaped Perithecium which, when mature, opens to relcase the ascospores ; and (ß) T h e DISCOMYCETES, in which the asci are produced on the surface of a disc-like or cup-shaped fructification called an Apothecium.—Many of the more conspicuous species are recorded in Henslow and Skepper's ' Flora of Suffolk ' ; and several of these were re-published, with additional localities, by the late Revd. E. N. Bloomfield in Trans. Norfolk & Norwich Naturalists' Soc., vol. viii, pp. 263-4 [1906 ; & Vict. Hist. Suffolk 1911, i, 84.—Ed.]. Quotations from these sources are here indicated by the initials (H. & S.) and (ENB) respectively. T h e records initialled (EAE) were kindly sent to me by Mr. Edward A. Ellis of Norwich Castle Museum ; and to him and Mr. Ronald Burn, who also gave me some interesting specimens, I tender my sincere thanks. My own gatherings were made chiefly in Mendlesham ; and it should be understood that, in every case where no locality is assigned, the fungus was found in that parish.

Of the 438 species here listed, 312 have not hitherto been recorded from Suffolk.

PYRENOMYCETES. GYMNOASCALES.

Ctenomyces serratus Eidam.

On rotting leaves of reeds.

PERISPORIALES. EUROTIACE/E.

Eurotium herbariorum Fr.

On dried plants in herbarium.