INSECTS 



others are contained in the Annah and Magaxine of Natural History and in the Zoologist of 1 844 and 

 1849 respectively, by Walton and Prof. Henslow. The venerable William Kirby died in 1850, 

 and in Mr. Freeman's account of his life, published in 1852, several of his more noteworthy beetles 

 are referred to, as well as many of his interesting Suffolk wanderings in search of them. Dawson 

 has new material in his Geedephaga Britannica of 1854, where several full accounts of those of the 

 older writers may be found. "The Naturalist of 1858 and the Entomologists' Weekly Intelligencer oi 

 1859 to 1861 contain some most useful lists of captures by Leeds Fox, Dr. Garneys, and Tyrer, 

 who went to live at Eye in April of the former year. Curtis supplements his earlier notes by others 

 in his Farm Insects in 1 860. The old numbers of the Entomologists' Monthly Magazine contain 

 several county records from the pens of Rye, Saunders, Walker, Barrett, and the Rev. A. H. Wratislaw 

 of Bury School, who also wrote on the subject in the Transactions of the Suffolk Archaeological Society 

 of 1870. Power seems to have collected here very little, but is interesting in the Entomologist of 

 1865 and 1866. Then comes the gap. Till 1894, when I attacked the beetles of the Ipswich 

 district, nothing was done, but since that time notes have flowed in broadcast from Messrs. BedwcU, 

 Baylis, Butler, Chitty, Cottam, Champion, F. Fox, Keys, Norgate, Tomlin, and Tuck. 



In 1899 I summed up all that was then known of our beetles, enumerating 1,763 species in 

 mj Coleoptera of Suffolk ; and we can now show that from 1795 to a few months ago, when a 

 species not previously known among the three and a quarter thousand in Britain was here discovered, 

 the county, despite its paucity of observers, has always held its own as a prolific and happy hunting 

 ground. 



An account of the more ubiquitous kinds would occupy far too much valuable space to no 

 good purpose, and I propose to give simply a brief summary of those species which, from their local 

 distribution, almost exclusive attachment to our peculiar supersoils, or their individual rarity, appear 

 to be worthy of especial consideration in a county history, particularly since full lists have already 

 been printed in my work above referred to. 



One of the most handsome, as well as rarest (for it is thought to be hardly indigenous), of our 

 British insects is Calosoma sychophanta, which was first discovered about 1820, at Aldeburgh, on the 

 Suffolk coast, by the poet Crabbe, who was undoubtedly a good naturalist or he could not have 

 written such a splendid risumf of the fauna of Belvoir as is published in Nichols' i//V/arj)<)/"Z,«V«?^r.' 

 This insect has probably occurred more frequently here than elsewhere in Britain, since we have 

 also records of it from Southwold, by a lady, and several times at Lowestoft, one as late as 

 1857, of which some were said to have been floating on the sea. Several continental beetles 

 appear to have reached our coast in this way, since Licinus cassideus, which is certainly not British, has 

 been found at Aldeburgh according to Dawson, who also says that Chlaenius sulcicollis, which has a 

 wide range through Germany, Sweden, &c., was once picked up near Covehithe about 1825. It is 

 a curious coincidence that these visitants should have all occurred within a few miles of each other. 

 There are other records of continental species occurring in Suffolk, but the majority of these are 

 very unreliable, since they were brought forward before our fauna was adequately investigated and 

 its species determined. Such marsh-frequenting kinds as Dromius sigma and D. longiceps, Odacantha 

 melanura, which occurs near Manningtree as well as in Benacre and Oulton Broads, and Bradycellus 

 placidus, are by no means uncommon among rejectamenta left on the banks after a flood ; and I 

 have enumerated 152 different species found in one bag of it on the margins of the River 

 Gipping near Ipswich in February, which included two dozen of the very rare Trachys troglodytes} 

 In May 1897 Mr. E. A. Elliott, F.Z.S., and I discovered Harpalus FrSlichii upon the Foxhall 

 plateau, which species had not before been found in Britain, and it was by no means rare in this one 

 restricted locality, where it occurred in company with H. discoideus, ignavus, consentaneus, Medon 

 castaneus, &c., during 1898. Then it appeared to unaccountably die out ; only one example being 

 found in 1899, and it was feared that it had entirely disappeared ; ' but it has again turned 

 up, though very sparingly, in its old haunts.* Upon the Breck sands in the neighbourhood of 

 Brandon is the only locality in Britain where Harpalus anxius is found inland, and almost the only 

 one inland for H. picipennis, though on the coast the former is common, with Amara consularis, 

 Lymnaeum nigropicum, Lionychus quadrillum, and the Pogoni. The first British capture of Polystichus 

 vittatus was effected by Hewitson in 1828 near Southwold ; and many other interesting Geodephaga 

 also occur. The last 1 shall refer to is Anchomenus gracilipes, which is nowhere found in our islands 

 outside this county, though the Rev. W. F. Johnson records it from Donegal ; this latter is, 

 however, owned to be an error in Mr. Johnson's recent List of the Beetles of Ireland. The first 

 specimen was taken at the Wisbeach Canal at Lowestoft in 1831 ; a second at Southwold in 1859; 

 two at Lowestoft in June 1861 ; and the last by Mr. Bedwell at the base of the Corton clifis in 

 June 1898.' 



' Vol. i, pp. cxc-cciii {1795). ' Cf. Ent. Mo. Mag. April 1897. 



' Ibid. 1898, p. 84 ; 1 90 1, p. 64 ; East Co. Mag. ii. No. 5. 



• Cf. Eftt. Mo. Mag. 1903, p. 205. ' Ibid. Oct. 1898. 



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