184 CHAPTER II 



VII. Barnstaple (N. Devon), 31.V, 54. —According to Gribble (1830, p. 547), 

 "the exports [from Barnstaple], the earliest statement of which refers to 1742, 

 were pfincipally to Newfoundland". Actually, Barnstaple ships started the New- 

 foundland fishing trade much earlier; there is a record from 1593 (I.e., p. 622). 

 It is possible that ballast, when used by vessels leaving this port, was taken on 

 "The Crow" off Appledore {vide pp. 164, 178) and no records of a certain ballast- 

 place within the limits of the town are available. On the other hand, the woollen 

 goods &c. which seem to have constituted the main cargo for Newfoundland may 

 occasionally have contained seeds, living insects &c. and there is reason to believe 

 that ballast was sometimes taken on board even in Barnstaple proper. 



On the advice of Mr. Blackwell, I chose as collecting-place the northern bank 

 of River Taw, immediately west of the mouth of the small River Ye, thus in the 

 westernmost part of the town. This is the part of the harbour where land is most 

 easily accessible to larger vessels, even at low tide. The selected place is situated 

 inside the quay and the railway embankment and is partly cultivated (allotment- 

 gardens). The vegetation otherwise consists of weeds, with Poa annua as completely 

 dominating plant. 



Collected animals: 



Coleoptera 56 (29) species Araneae 5 (o) species 



Carabidae 25 (13) » Opilionida i (i) » 



Curculionidae 3 (3) » Iso-Myriapoda 8 (6) » 



Hem. Heteroptera 3 (o) » Mollusca 7 (3) * 



Dermaptera i (i) » 



Specially considered groups: 45 species, 27 "emigrants" = 60 per cent. 



VIII. Bristol (Somerset), 6. IV. 54.— According to information kindly given by 

 Miss Elizabeth Ralph, City Archivist of the Council House, a "ballast master" 

 was appointed in Bristol from about the 17th century and the orders to be observed 

 by him included the establishment of a "ballast wharf" where ships might collect 

 and deposit ballast. The exact site of this wharf is not known but Mr. Walter 

 Minchinton suggests, in a letter to Miss Ralph, that the ballast came "from the 

 neighbourhood of the Avon Gorge and the Downs", that is from the banks of 

 River Avon in the northwestern part of the town, possibly from the quarries dug in 

 the steep rock. 



A short collecting trip, in company with Mr. P. Ardo, was made on the left 

 (Somerset) side of the Avon Gorge on both sides of the CHfton Suspension Bridge, 

 around upper tidal limit, thus in more or less saline localities.^ The vegetation 



^ Several species collected at Bristol are no true inhabitants of saline localities (for instance 

 Amara aenea DeG. and Agomim dorsale Pont, among Carabid beetles, many of the Staphy- 



