Insects Rediscovered at Fritton Warren

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INSECTS

RED I SCO VERED WARREN.

BY J I M

AT

FRITTON

BURTON.

Âť HALLOAH ! H e r e is Pissodes, N E W to S u f f o l k , c r i e d our H o n . Secretary (who gives m e many of t h e following ldentifications) after his first beat f r o m the Pine Copse, as I was getting my n e t out of t h e car u p o n arrival at the W a r r e n . So we took the m a t t e r seriatim and thrashed a h a l f - d o z e n P . n o t a t u s , F . , along with one or two Ernobius oblitus, Shp. (teste Blair), also N E W to t h e County, off those Fir-trees. Just as we completed the Copse's circuit, Vanessa c-album passed, curveting with a $ Papilla Machaon, evidently blown u p by the stiffish north breeze Irom the W a v e n e y marshes, towards which we m a d e our way over t h e W a r r e n , in hot sunshine on this g l o n o u s 25 J u n e , m V .

Between two sandy root-fields Melanchra Serena was sitting on an O a k - t r u n k , amid profuse Heracleum-flowers to w h i c h were attracted in some n u m b e r s b o t h sexes of the Bee Andrena pihpes, i With a Single good Sawfly Allantus flavipes, Frc. F u r t h e r north, the beating tray revealed f r o m isolated Oaks on the heath two verv different f o r m s of Tenthredopsis litterata, Gf., i.e. a typical <J w i t h microcephala, L e p . , ? in cop., a circumstance rarely seen in t h i s genus. W i t h t h e m I beat out t h e T i p u l i d Limnophora submarmorata, Verr. and Balaninus venosus, Gr., with t h e Clicks Athous hirtus, H b . and a couple of Corymbites aeneus, L., not f o u n d in Suffolk since it was " rare at Beiton and F r i t t o n in 1834 (Pagets).

N e a r the marshes a h u n d r e d yards f u r t h e r north, I netted a 9 of the fine Dragonfly /Eschna isosceles, MĂźll., as it was slowly Aying over heather : not captured in Suffolk since t h e above Pagets' 1834 record (Trans, supra i, 22 and iv, 254). S u b s e q u e n t days showed on the W a r r e n or its bordering dykes such Odona a as Sympetrum striolatum, Orthetrum cancellatum ^Mulad^pressa e t 4-maculata, JEschnagrandis et(teste o u r M e m b e r M i s s ; W i l l i a m s ) , JE. cyanea, Lestes sponsa (but no L . Dryas, as we hoped), Ischnura eleeans, Agrion puella, Pyrrhosoma nymphula and a second buttolk l 3 5 (Trans. V, 218) f o r P . tenellum, Vill., of which b o t h sexes were a b u n d a n t u p o n boggy ground near the butts.

L a t e r visits are likely to have been equally profitable were it not for the railway-men's reprehensible practicc of b u r m n g their bank-herbage, which set the W a r r e n itself on fire in a stiff north-west breeze, totally ruining for this year a considerab e area of heath-plants, with their Beetles Harpalus melanchohcus

INSECTS REDISCOVERED AT FRITTON WARREN

7

( N E W to Suffolk, though known f r o m Essex and Norfolk), Dromius angustus, Luperus longicornis, Apion brachypterus (taken by D r .

Blair at Dingle in Dunwich during June 1926) and Anoplus plantaris, all noted here ; along with their Moths Nematois fasciella, Metrocampa prosapiaria and Procris statices, a small colony of both sexes of which occurred as late as 10 July at a sandy spot close to the butts ; also their Diptera Rhagio lineola, Thereva nobihtata, Tabanus autumnalis in some numbers (and on Pine-trunks at Herringfleet), Empis pennipes, Ephydrids with Poecilobothrus nobilitatis and other Dolichopods crowding the ditches, and many SS of Anisopus punctatus sitting on the trunk of a just-sugared O a k - t r e e ; and Hymenoptera Ammophila campestris, Cerceris ornata Oxybelus uniglumis, Crabro vagus et scutellatus and Coelioxys elongata : all observed at various parts of the Warren. Very numerousPhilodromus aureolus, Clk., with other species of Spiders, were beaten from Gorse ; and the Myriopod Polyxenus lagurus, L. (Trans, v, 87), was found beneath Heather.

Finally on 11 July a moth-lamp was lighted on the heath, overlooking the west marshes, soon after dusk and watched tili the moon rose at 11 p.m. But the sole Lepidoptera of the least note were Herminia cribralis, Peronea aspersana, Telphusa proximella and Gelechia umbrosella. Nor was sugar more attractive that night, though by no means wasted, for at it on an Elm-trunk was Eccoptogaster destructor and on a Fir-trunk, in a grove of some three-dozen thirty-year-old Pinus sylvestris, was Hylobius abietis.

Moreover, with the last though entirely ignonng the sugar, were secured a fßll dozen fine Longicorns that strongly resembled Criocephalus ferus, Muls. : a pair in cop. and, for the rest, about one on every-other trunk at 10.30 p.m. All were umformly circa 20 m m . long, and their borings in those trunks were discovered. Dr. Blair teils me that the species is C. rusticus, Linn. ( N E W to Suffolk), which he has from only north Devon and the Scilly Isles. It is remarkable that so conspicuous an Insect should have been unrecognised in Britaintill 1905,whenitwasfirstbrought forward (Trans. Ent. Soc. 153) from P. sylvestris at Nethy Bridge in Scotland and bred from Pine-props in a Welsh coal-mine : its ränge extends across the entire temperate zone from Japan to north Europe. But the nocturnal habit appears hitherto unnoticed.

T h e whole of Fritton Warren is of pleistocene Glacial Gravel and Sand, with no more than a transverse outcrop of cultivated Boulder Clay to the east of Pine Copse. I t is bounded on the north and west by a railway, which follows the junction of this heath with the post-glacial Alluvial marshes that have been reclaimed from the River Waveney, here banked into its present artificially narrow bed. T h e Warren, since it was worked before 1834

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INSECTS REDISCOVERED AT FRITTON WARREN

by the brothers Paget of Yarmouth (Trans, vi, 182), has been practically terra incognita to Naturalists ; the sole exceptions being a visit by Mr. Goddard, a perfunctory one by our Society in 1932 (Proc. ii, p. xxxii), and a third paid by the late Mr. Doughty and our Hon. Secretary in 1923 (EA. Miscellany, 6629). It has altered during the last füll Century probably less than any other part of Suffolk, nor do the present disfiguring wires and pylons and railway affect its Fauna or Flora ; these would well repay closer attention than has hitherto been accorded them. We have here an excellent confirmation of the dictum that the most recent strata are those most lavish of rare species.

SHELL EMBEDDED IN A ROCK.—This is, no doubt, a very common sort of object. It was found by Mr. B. J. Balfe of Stowmarket at Chelsworth on 25 September last. I could teil him only that it was a fossil Shell embedded in a Rock. Will you kindly identify it more exactly ?—W. G. THURLOW. [The matrix is a Chertstone that looks as though it had been long used as a Neolothic Axe ; it is rather over two inches broad and, with both extremities broken, nearly four in length. Upon its flatter side and near the present tip is embedded one valve of the Pelecypod Mollusc Lima squamosa, Lam., much worn, presumably by frequent handling by Early Men.—Ed.] ALGJE N E W TO SUFFOLK.—By examining some of the browngreen tangle and scum from the surface of Mendlesham ditches on 7 May, I found, in addition to several of the more common species, two Freshwater Algae which are not mentioned in the Revd. E. N. Bloomfield's list (Vict. Hist. Suff. 1911, 74), namely (Edogonium concatenatum, Hass. and Sciadium arbuscula, Braun ; the pretty little parasols of the latter were attached to Vaucheria and Draparnaldia.—A. MAYFIELD. MARINE LOCATION.—Skipper A . Buck of the Lowestoft trawler Caspian last mid-summer brought the Norwich Museum a ponderous femur of the Mammoth Elephas primigenius, Blum.

This had come up in the net on the Brown Ridge, fifty-and-five miles from Lowestoft and about as far from the Dutch coast.

Then, more being wanted by the curator, Buck returned to the exact spot in the North Sea and thence on 13 July triumphantly conveyed four more bones of the same individual Mammal with part of a tusk. A remarkable achievement in sea-reckoning (Local Paper, 14 July, 1949).