News for Naturalists 6 Part 3

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W e all m a r c h together, With the G r e y G o o s e feather, In the land where the G r e y G e e s e dwell : Suffolk !

SUFFOLK seems to be Coming into her own as a scientific centre of Natural Productions. Last May our Member E. A. Ellis represented us at the British Mycological Society's investigation of the Micro-fungi round East Bergholt and promises to give us its new County Records, meanwhile remarking that the hedges t'iere swarmed with the large Bug, Coreus marginatus, and yielded one Mitre-bug, Verlusia rhombea. In June the SE. Union of Scientific Societies held its fifty-second annual congress at Yarmouth, making excursions to Fritton Lake, &c., on ISth led by our Member F. C. Cook. Our Lowestoft Recorder, Mr. Jim Burton, represented both our Society and that of the South London Natural History. In July Prof. Dr. A. W. Jakubski, upon our advice, visited Mildenhall in search of the plant Soler-' anthus perennis upon which alone is known to feed the Coccid Margarodes polonica, common on the Continent. Of his success we are hoping to hear. As part of the International Geological Congress in London, its foreign members invaded Suffolk for four days under our Member, Cameron Ovey in September ; they travelled to examine the Glacial Drifts and unique Crag Beds of our coast, from the Stour estuary to Corton, Claydon and the cradle of worked Flints at Hoxne.

A new British Longicorn Beetle, Trinophylum cribratum, Bates, from India where it feeds upon Oak, has occurred in some numbers at both Cowes in I. Wight and Feltham in Middlesex. A series was exhibited on 21 January last before the Royal Entomological Society.

The continental Marsh Frog Rana ridibunda, most frequent in Hungary, has been this year ascertained to be the species that was introduced to the Romney Marshes in 1935 and erroneously described four years later as R. esculenta.

The Hon. Secretary of the British Herpetological Society shows this new Batrachian (Trans, ii, 219) to be an addition to the British fauna. Than the above Edible Frog it is more voracious and larger, olive-brown with both the belly and legs boldly black-spotted.

Member J. C. Robson writes on 17 February : Allow me to say how very much I appreciatc the sentiments of the Member who contributed the article on the Avocet (supra, p. 81) to our last excellent Transactions. I was aware this Bird was present

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and probably breeding in at least two localities, having first heard about their nests in the middle of May ; but purposely avoided going to either site because, being an Egg Collector, I did not hanker after an imputation of interference. I can assure you that the majority of collectors, most of whom I know personally, have no wish to hasten the extinction of any Bird. They do not touch Kites ; and have mutually agreed to leave the Dartford Warbier alone until it has recovered from the disastrous winter of 1947 and the effects of war upon its breeding haunts. A friend of mine who, I am sure, holds the correct outlook upon collecting is about to publish a book on the " Science of Birds-nesting " ; and I wonder whether there is any objection to my sending him our Trans., so 1 hat he may quote your contributor's most sane and gratifying opinion towards Oologists. After all, it is very generally though grudgingly admitted that the oologist is in most cases the best ornithologist in the field ; and to me it always seems such a great pity that the vast amount of authentic data held by respectively the protectionists and the collectors can never be pooled for the benefit of Science, for fear that the other side should take advantage of the whole. I invariably use my best endeavour to prombte better understanding between the two factions in the hope that, with a little reasonable co-operation on each side, very much more of valuable data could be compiled.

Fifteen years ago we advocated the establishment of a local Museum at Beccles (Trans, ii, 169) in a house, then most suitable, in Smallgate. At long length, last January, a special committee recommended to the Town Council that such a Museum be established in Beccles Town Hall. Its report was presented to the Council by the Mayor, unanimously approved, and the County Council was to be approached with a view to collecting Borough Records thefe. Such is glad tidings ; but, wherever established, it will very soon out-grow its quarters, which is the usual habit of local museums. Response should be generous.

In order to forestall similar future enigmas, it miy be well to relate that a Member last April sent in a pure white, glabrous and shining body of ovate shape, firmly attached by its broaderextremity to the sere stem of a low plant. It strongly resembled in size and colour an egg of the Emperor Moth, excepting in shape which we could nowhere match among those of Lepidoptera. Mr. George Baker suggested that of some unknown Mollusc ; Mr. Jim Burton a small Bird's dropping, as its base slightly overhung the fulcrum.

Not tili September wa? the riddle solved by the omniscient Dr. K. G. Blair, who pronounced it to be the fruit that gives rise to the iiame of Lithospermum officinale, the plant to which it still adhered ! " One can't know everything," as the late Geoff. Meade-Waldo was wont to assert.

219 Now that all immediate danger from the Colorado Beetle appears to be past (for no more than the negligible number of eight colonies have been noted this year up to August, and of them north of the Thames only in Berks and Worcester), the British government is about to expend a sum of ÂŁ50,000 on the pest.

This seems entirely for the benefit of our Continental " brothers," largely in Germany. Moreover the' British government has invited all European peoples to attend a Geneva Conference for the pest's control in October 1948, just seventy-one years after it wasfirstnoted in Britain. The sole bright spot about the deplorable business is that our old friend Dr. C. T. Gimingham, Albert Piffard's nephew and an entomologist of long standing, takes control as Director of the Harpenden Laboratory. From him we hope to hear, for thefirsttime be it noted, of a natural control : Art in the shape of insecticides is a very pretty thing, but essentialy artificial and consequently incapable of vying with Nature.

Gimingham sent us a copy of his paper on " Some Parasites of Beetles " as long ago as 1922, so we quite expect him to bring forward the Ichneumon-fly Perilitus falciger, Ruth., several times bred both here and in France from the Beetle Timarcha tenebricosa, a close ally to this horrific Coloradan Leptinotarsa 10-lineata, Say, never yet detected in Suffolk though here every man, woman and child one meets is prepared to swear to its yellow-lined chubiness.

Our Member, the Revd. Dr. J. E. Hull in the 1948 Essex Naturalist, xxviii, 58, brings the total Spiders of that County up to a total of 194 species, with the description of one new to Science, Oxptila maculosa, Hull, from Pelgate Wood in Elmstead.

He teils us a Manual of British Spiders, by Dr. Millidge of Coulsdon & Locket of Harrow, is about to be published by the Ray Society. " My wife and I have been roaming along the Kentish Downs, admiring thefloweringplants and spending considerable time on the grassy, bush-clad banks, where many kinds of Orchids grow," London paper announced happily on 18 July 1948. Exactly on the reverse of the shield, or page, appeared theflamingcaption : " They've Struck Coal 25 Miles Fr^m London " at Cobham in Kent (a beauty-spot where dear old Alfred Beaumont and we were wont to bug-hunt justfiftyyears ago). The strike was made by excavators in search of peat and ochre ; and it is thought that this seam of " coal-bearing soil " may Stretch for a score of miles.

At Dover coal was discovered, at the same time as it was proved NOT to exist (thanks be !) under Suffolk, in 1894; and the sole mercy is that the new northern bed has lain perdu through so long an interim. Down will be hacked all the trees of Cobham in the hĂźstle for lucre, whether the Oaks bear Mistletoe or not.

Little will be recked that new eure for the curse of Cancer, the essentialy Oak-tree Viscum album, of which plants growing on Apple, Poplar, &c., lack virtue, as the papers announced on 18 of NEWS FOR NATURALISTS

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last May. Rather than eradicate Beauty by Grime would we prefer to plant, as West Hartlepool last May decided to phnt, fifty thousand trees to shut out their cold sea winds.

Our Member, Dr. C. D. Day of Dorchester, has in the press his British Tachinid Flies, shortly to be published at 15s. 6d. by MM. Bunde and Company of Market Place, Arbroath, by whom Orders are now booked.

Hitherto it has been considered advisable to treat all Insects in our Transactions under the easily recognised divisions, plainly laid down by Prof. Westw'ood, of (l)Coleopterawithhorny, and (2) Hemiptera with membraneous, front wings ; (3) Lepidoptera with scaly, and (4) Neuroptera with hairy, wings whose relativity is shown at Trans, i, 182 ; (5) Hymenoptera with four transparent, and (6) Diptera with two, wings ; but the (7) cursorial Aptera and (8) haltatory Collembola, with no wings, are merged into foregoing Orders. And in such practice we shall persist, for the benefit of our numerous novitiates. Progressives of the present Century, however, maintain that such are not " natural'" divisions, because every other characteristic b disconsonant. Hence the old subdivisions of Neuroptera (quoted lib. cit.) are now regarded as Orders of equal dignity to Coleoptera, &c. Such is at present a matter sub judice and in so confusing a manner that one prefers to await some sort of finality before adopting an obviously fluctual Classification. For instance, the Proc. R. Entomological Society show last January that " certain structural details " of Micropteryx calthella, L. (cf. Meyrick's Brit. Lepidoptera 1928, p. 875 : now regarded as pertaining to the new Order Zeugloptera), larv«e " throw considerable lighton the affinities [i.e. humanly considered relativity] of the Zeugloptera to the Trichoptera, Lepidoptera and other members of the Panorpid [olim Neuropterous] complex, supporting the validity of the order Zeugloptera and showing two principal groups in the Panorpid complex : (1) Zeugloptera, Trichoptera and Lepidoptera ; and (2) Mecoptera [olim Neuropterous], Siphonaptera [Fleas, olim Dipterous] and Diptera. In many respects, the family Boreidas [olim included in Panorpidse] is intermediate between these two series of Orders." The whole leaves one wondering which grouping is cosmos and which chaos.

What experts of the Natural History Museum believe to be a plant new [to Science] has been discovered in the Mildenhall district on the border of Breckland. It is similar to the ordinary Woody Nightshade and like the miniature Orange Trees that are sold as populär pot plants. The discovery is the outcome of the activities of the Mildenhall Natural History Society, which has a flourishing membership of sixty-six. The plant was found by Mr. L. Grantham, when out with the assistant secretary Mr. A. Grantham, who said on 27 October 1948 that it is definitely of the Solanum or Nightshade family.—Evening News, 28th.

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Superincumbent upon most irritating economic restrictions, elemental foulness has rendered the past season most disappointing entomologically. General moan goes up from all Britain ; our far-flung, badly stung Members wail in unison. From the Isle of Wight Dr. Blair groans " What a poor year ! Cold and windy and wet, with but little sun : hence a dearth of Insects. Nevertheless, I have met with a few oddments of interest. On 9 August two of the large Micros Diasemia ramburialis (728) were captured, along with Phlyctaenia ferrugalis and Nomophila noctuella (834-8), which raised hopes of a great wave of immigrants, but there ensued nothing to support these hopes. On 6 August the fine Chalcid, Brachymeria minuta, L., emerged from some Dipterous larvse in a dead Snail; those larvae produced a species of Sarcophagafly, from which genus the parasite has been already recorded [and we possess from Cornwall, Kent, Hertford and Suffolk, though it is quite uncommon.—Ed.], Another interesting Chalcid, not yet adequately identified, is a multiple parasite in the eggs of the Reed Grasshopper, Conocephalus dorsalis (Trans, p. 84 supra), which eggs themselves appear to be hitherto undescribed. Also I was very delighted to come across a small colony of the Sand Wasp Philanthus triangulum, confined to the Isle of Wight in all Britain and here shown by you, my dear Morley (in the Natural History of I. Wight, 1909), to be entirely unobserved since at latest 1867."

T h e last is, indeed, glad tidings of great joy : how we scoured the Sandown cliffs, sitting hours on end in torrid sun at prepossessing spots. Love's labour lost! Such are a few sunny spots in a drab and uninteresting year.

T h e Society had the pleasure of entertaining its Member the Keeper of Entomology in the British Museum and Mrs. Norman D. Riley, at Monks' Soham House on 8 November.

T h e annual exhibition at Burlington House and dinner at Frascati's of the South London Natural History Society on 29-30 October were as crowded as is u s u a l ; and the Suffolks as well represented. T h e former could not be expected to maintain the peculiar interest lent it by last year's spate of immigrants, whence came a vast number of varietal breedings from Rhodometra sacraria. But such delectable Noctuae as Phoberia lunaris and Catocala fraxini, the Kentish high lights of 1948, attracted attention, with a single evening's dozen Harmodia compta from one Folkestone garden, detected among H. nana by our Member the Baron de Worms. Other Orders were less fully represented, and included the female type of the parasitic Pimpla Burtoni (Trans, v, 201) from Blythburgh. At the same time the Zoological Gardens were visited, where the Aquarium is particularly good but the Insect House already closed for the winter.