Page:VCH Suffolk 1.djvu/163

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INSECTS found P. sexpunctatus in his house in May 1 86 1 . A letter, describing the damage done to an oak beam in Barham Church by Xestoblum tefsellatum, from Mr. Spence, was read before the Entomological Society in 1847. The Longicornia of the county could probably be augmented by a systematic working of the ancient woods around Fakenham and Staverton, which former I have never visited ; most of the commoner kinds are, however, recorded. The lovely and aromatic musk beetle occurs year after year not uncommonly about Mildenhall, as was at first pointed out to me by Dr. Sharp ; it resembles a great emerald as it sits upon the white fluffy heads of the Angelica, sipping their nectar and protesting with loud stridulations to the pressure of one's fingers, with which it is easily captured ; when flying it looks like a small bird, with its wide-spread elytra, legs, and flowing antennae. Hylotrupes bajulus from Frostenden, and CalUdium alni from Bungay, have not been met with for many years. Curtis once took ' a considerable number ' of Clytus arcuatm near the latter town, and I have recently rediscovered Rhtgium bifasciatum, which is not rare in most parts of England. Acanthocinus aedi/is, Monochammus sutor, and Phytaecia cylindrica have all occurred spar- ingly ; the last, which has been recorded from Eye and Coddenham, has recently been found about Bury by Mr. Tuck. In the Phytophaga — so called, I suppose, because the species of this division are only a small part of the plant-feeding beetles ! — we are very rich, more especially, as was remarked by Rye,' in the leaping species, which include the Turnip ' Fleas.' Sixteen of the nineteen British Donaciae have been noticed, of which D. dentipes is only known to live at Oulton Broad and Henstead Marsh, and D. cinerea only in Barnby Broad, where it is confined to a single clump of Arundo phragmites, though first turned up many years ago by Curtis ; and D. impressa has not been found in Suffolk for seventy years. Cryptocephalui iexpunctatm has only once been found : I beat an example from birch in the Bentley Woods in May 1895, and though the spot has since been constantly searched no more have appeared. Crysomela carnifex is another instance of a continental species found on the Suffolk coast, this time at Covehithe in April, by Mr. Curtis, who often collected in that neighbour- hood ; and there is hardly room to doubt the correctness of this record when we find that in June 1897 a specimen of the continental C. gloriosa, var. superba, was taken alive on the cliffs at South- wold, only a couple of miles farther south, and was carefully examined and undoubtedly correctly named. It is somewhat uncommon on the Continent, extending from the M^iritime Alps, through Switzerland and Saxony, to the confines of Poland ; there is, however, no evidence to show that it has ever occurred in north-west Germany, it is unknown in Holland, and its mode of arrival upon our coast is entirely open to discussion. It may have been imported with garden produce, since it feeds upon the umbelliferous Laierpitimn g/abrum, in which case one would rather have looked for it in a town like Lowestoft, where Carabus auratus, Dawson says, has occurred, than on the open cliffs of South wold.'" Phytodecta rufipes, Crytocephalui lineola, and Haltica corylizrc common in the Bentley Woods; and Crepidodera nitidu/a is another rare kind, occurring not uncommonly upon young white poplars in Assington Thicks. Microxoum tibiale was taken by Kirby and Marsham at Barton Mills, where it is still often seen, in 1797 ; the former once took Diaperh boleti in 'considerable numbers' from a fungus near Barham in June, and it has not since been found in Britain. Cteniopus sulphureus is usually considered to be a coast insect, but in Suffolk we find it throughout the county — at Belton, Brandon, Tuddenham, Bramford, &c. That interesting beetle whose larva always lives in wasps' nests, Metaecus paradoxus, is not by any means uncommon here, fifty examples having been found in one year near Bury by Mr. Tuck ; and I anticipate that its supposed rarity would dis- appear if collectors cared to more frequently attack its strongholds. Cantharis ves'uatoria is said by Westwood to have appeared in the county in ' immense profusion ' about 1837. It was recorded from Tuddenham and Icklingham by Wratislaw ; and has lately been taken, locally abundant, in Essex and Cambridgeshire ; in 1906 it was common at Newmarket. Kirby first described the curious and anomalous Choragus Sheppardi from Offten * in Suffblcii ' in 18 1 8," and named it after the Rev. Revett Sheppard, who was curate of Nacton during the three years following 1804, and a great friend of his ; it is not a rare species here, though always occurring singly. An inexplicable case of ' distribution ' is furnished by the occurrence of Rhinomacer attelaboides upon the pine trees in the Bentley Woods early in 1898 ; this species had never been found south of Ripon before, and no new timber had for a great many years been imported. '^ Suffolk is rendered classical ground for the charming genus Apion by Kirby's ' Mono- graph ' upon it in the Linnean Transactions, and some sixty different kinds are noted from the county, among which A. laevigatum is extremely rare, having been taken in only one other (now destroyed) locality in Britain." Kirby writes of it ' in arenario quodam prope Gippovicum a Dom. Sheppard bis lectum ' ; it is said to feed in galls upon the terminal shoots of Gnaphalium gallicum, A. affine, limonii, Gyllenhali, astragali, and Jlavimanum are also recorded by the older authors, but ' Cf. Ent. Ann. 1865, p. 40. "> E. Anglian Daily Times, 15 Dec. 1898. " Cf. Linn. Trans, xii, 447. " Cf. Ent. Mo. Mag. xxxiv, 166. " Cf. Proc. Ent. Soc. 1841, p. 32 ; Ent. Rec. viii, 2451. 125