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. 



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