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FIELD NOTES. 



Isolated Nests of Rooks. — In recent years I have noticed 

 a great tendency among rooks for individual pairs of birds 

 to construct nests in isolated trees, a good distance away 

 from a rookery. This habit I have observed practically 

 all over the county. There are also large numbers of new 

 rookeries, many of them in populous and busy neighbourhoods'. 

 Correspondingh^ many of the older, rookeries have decreased 

 in numbers, and in some cases have been abandoned altogether. 

 Is the raiding to which many of them were subjected during 

 the war responsible for this? It would be interesting to have 

 reports from the various parts of the county as to whether 

 rooks have decreased or otherwise in the old rookeries, and 

 how many new ones have been established. — R. Fortune. 



Hygrobia (Pelobius) tarda Herbst., etc., near Hull.^ 

 x\mong the water beetles I captured in a pond on tlie Humber 

 shore, at Paull, on April 25th, was a specimen of Hygrobia 

 tarda, the ' Screech ' or ' Squeaker ' Beetle. As far as I 

 am aware it is more then twenty-eight years ago since the 

 last Yorkshire examples were taken. This happened on the 

 occasion of a Yorkshire Naturalists' Union excursion to 

 Withernsea, on August ist, 1892, when Mr. W. H. Baker 

 found it plentifully in stagnant ponds to the north of that 

 place. Induced by this record, I have frequently sought 

 for the species in the Hull district, but hitherto without 

 success. On May ist, Mr. E. Bilton captured another 

 specimen in the same pond at Paull. This insect was added 

 to the Lincolnshire list in igo8, examples being taken at 

 Aylesbury and Humberstone. The beetle is interesting 

 not only on account of its power of loud stridulation, but 

 also for its somewhat aberrant position among water beetles 

 proper. Houlbert states the case very well in ' Les Coleopteres 

 d'Europe,' Tome I., p. 292, where he writes that ' Ic genre 

 Hygrobia pent etre considere comme I'un des moins specialises 

 parmi les Hydrocanthares ; c'est, en somme, une sorte de 

 Carabique incompletement adapte au milieu aquatique et 

 chez lequel le facies dytiscidien n'est encore qu' incomplete- 

 ment exprime.' It may be of interest to record further cap- 

 tures; on May ist, of seven or eight examples of Dyiiscus 

 circitmflexits F., in a pond on the Humber shore near Cherry 

 Cob Sands. This is more easterly than its previously recorded 

 localities of last year. I am of opinion that circumflexu$.\\'\\\ 

 prove to be the characteristic Dytiscus of the Humber littoral. 

 Wherever it occurs it seems, as a rule, to outnumber both 

 the marginalis and punctulatus which may be associated with 

 it. It is almost certain thai it will be found in ponds on the 

 south shore of the Humber, for it occurs in Norfolk, and a 

 search for it should be made by our Lincolnshire friends. — 

 T. Staixfoktii, Hull. 



Naturalist 



