December, ISO". I 2G5 



A DAY IN KIEBY'S COUNTRY. 



BY CLAUDE MORLEY, P.E.S., &c. 



I set down the following account of the best day's collecting I 

 have done this year, no less because I traversed ground over which 

 Kirby, Denny, Marsham, and Stephens collected nearly a hundred 

 years ago, than as an example of the beneficial effects upon insects 

 of very capricious meteorological influences during the previous 

 week. On June 10th I trained to Chiydon Station, walking thence 

 along the banks of the Gipping, through about a mile of Barham parish, 

 to Great Blakenham, over the river. Striking across country I came 

 out upon the Little Blakenham chalk pits, and so found my way back 

 to Bramford Station. I carried only a sweeping net, and consequently 

 missed many Symenopfera and Diptera. 



Taking the insects more or less in order, and the beetles first — 

 HomaJota vicina and succicola were common at Cossus burrows in an 

 old willow by the Gipping, and S. pagana and depressa swept from 

 herbage, together with Philonthus eheninus, Stenus paganus and 

 nitidiusculus, Hypocyptus longicornis, &c. Antliohium sorbi (not re- 

 corded from Suffolk since the publication of Stephens' "Illustrations)," 

 and Byturus tomentosus and samhuci, occurred sparingly on JJmheUi- 

 ferce, and Meligethes lumhuris (new to Suffolk) and rujipes upon other 

 flowers, of which there were quantities. By turning over some pieces 

 of timber, about to be converted into hurdles, in a wood at Great 

 Blakenham, I took the first Suffolk specimen of Wiizophngiis jjaraUelo- 

 collis. Atomaria linearis and many other common Clavicornia were 

 taken by sweeping. The first specimens of Corymhites quercus, var. 

 ochropterus and Telephorus lateralis recorded from the county were 

 swept in Barham, by the river, with numbei'sof T. testaceus and JlaviJa- 

 hris, and MaltTiodes minimus : T. hcemorrhoidalis, Antliocomus fasciatun, 

 and M'llachius ceneus also occurred sparingly. Priohiiim castaneum was 

 found singly at Little Blakenham, and Tetrops prceusta (which is very 

 erratic in its appearance here) was beaten, with Bruclius rujimanus, 

 from umbels at Great Blakenham. By sweeping the reeds at Barham 

 Donacia qffinis, Psylliodes picina, Crep>idodera aurafa and smaragdina 

 (the last new to Suffolk, though I have subsequently taken it at 

 Southwold and Ipswich) were noticed, and C cliloris was not uncommon 

 on willow leaves, basking in the sunshine with Psylliodes ajjinis. The 

 only locality I know for Butopliila ceruta is at Great Blakenham ; here 

 it occurred not uncommonly on the outskirts of the wood already 

 referred to. Several black Isoinira murina, which form has been un- 



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