Page:VCH Suffolk 1.djvu/186

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A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK abundant in all stages on the leaves of both old and young beeches at the beginning of June, but soon disappeared. Of LachnuSy the presumably rare L. agilis was commonly beaten from pines in the middle of August, though but three winged forms were seen. Many winged L. macrocephalui were beaten from spruce at Foxhall on 4 July 1904 ; and Kirby and Spence say '^ that L. plni used to be common in the garden of Mr. Sheppard, who was curate of Nacton, 1804-7. I have captured winged L. p'tnicolus in the Bentley Woods in July and at Easton Broad in June ; and in the middle of August beaten the apterous form abundantly in my garden here, where were no winged individuals. Three hibernating winged females of the large L. vimina/is were found beneath willow bark by the Gipping at Ipswich during the winter of 1894-5. Kirby says ^^ that he has taken Aphis radicum (= Trama troglodytes) in the nest of Lasius flavus — most probably in this county. Of the Schizoneurinae, Schizoneura lanigera is only too common here and at Brandon on apple bark ; I have, however, seen none winged ; they were still on the trees 22 October 1907. Apterous S. fuliginosa are equally abundant in downy masses, one behind the other, on the pinnules of Scots fir in August ; the earliest winged ones appeared last year on 22 October. Perhaps the ubiquitous S. corni, more appropriately called vagans, was the species said by Kirby to have occurred in incredible numbers in Ipswich in 1814 ; it is, at all events, often abundant there, at Wherstead, and Barren Heath, as well as at Monk Soham, Reydon, Tuddenham, Eriswell, and Brandon, first appearing on 22 August in 1907. Of the remaining small families I can at present only mention Cherma laricis, of which I found eggs, larvae, and winged females abundantly on larches at Foxhall at the end of May, and a big oviparous female here in June ; and Forda formkaria, which Mr. Chitty took near Brandon in the nest of Tetramorium caespitum early in May. Aberrant Hemiptera Under this heading I shall notice the extremely few species of all those various families which have at different times been thought to possibly belong to this Order, because little or nothing has been ascertained respecting them in Suffolk, and they appear to have appealed very little to the collecting instincts of our entomologists. I have, for instance, very often seen Coccidae, or Scale Insects, on bushes and have passed them by on the other side ; once I did send what I thought to be a Coccid to Mr. Newstead, but he returned it as the pupa of a Psyllid 1 Mr. Tomlin has found fluffy Coccids on bushes in the Bentley Woods, and I have no doubt Mytilaspis, Aspidiotus, and the rest of the pests are only too common with us, but I wot not of them. The only three species of the family I can refer to are the currant scale, Pulvinaria riiesiaf. Sign., which I saw on my currant bushes this year, Aspidiotes crataegi on hawthorn, and a white coccid, which simply covered the bark of a tall beech in my garden last August, but its name I do not know. Only two kinds of Aleurodidae have been mentioned by Mr. Douglas, both taken that year by Mr. Bonnewell ; Aleurodes proUtella, Linn., on celandine at Coddenham on 7 November, and A. hrassicae. Walk., on savoys in an Ipswich garden on the 14th of the same month ; the latter species occurred in my garden at Monk Soham on 3 June and again in October 1906. Of the Mallophaga, too, those apterous parasites of birds which have no suction-tube with its circle of hooks at the base, but a biting mouth, only three kinds can be instanced, though a very great many certainly occur, since each bird is supposed to possess a peculiar one. The first appears to be Laemobothrum laticolle, Denny, who says it is found on the genus Falco ; this was certainly taken, with many more of the same species, upon a hawk which a fowler had caught in his net near Ipswich in November 1900; and in October 1903 Mr. W. A. Dutt sent me apparently the same kind, found on a hobby hawk {F. subhuteo) at Lowestoft. Two domestic fowl lice, Goniocotes hologaster and Menopon pallidium, have been found in my hen-house at Monk Soham. The Pediculidae raise more aver- sion than interest, and the only three kinds at present under notice are Pediculus capitis, Nitz ;. that so often found on pigs, Haematopinus suis, Leach, and the dog louse, H. pi/ifirus, Burm. Nor can we claim any authentic Thripsidae, though abundant everywhere and in July often sweeping over the neighbourhood in myriads, entering picture-frames in such numbers as to neces- sitate remounting, and tickling everyone's flesh ; the commonest kind here is probably Limothrips cerealium, Hal., so destructive to corn.'* A second species, Coleothrips fasciata, Linn., has been some- what doubtfully recorded from Monk Soham by Prof. Poulton." In 1905 I published The Hemiptera of Suffolk, which brings the total of Heteroptera noted here up to 281 species, and the Homoptera, of the families Cicadidae and Psyllidae, to 162 species, " Introd. to Entom. (7th ed.), 185. " Ibid. 336. " Ent. Mo. Mag. 1895, p. 68. " Cf. my notes in E. Anglian Daily Timet, 7 Aug. 1906. " Tram. Ent. Soc. 1906, p. 409. 148