Miscellanea Zoologica. By James Hardy. 



1. AcmcBa testudinalis. Happening to be at Siccar Point 

 when the tide was far out, I took the opportunity of looking 

 for the Acmcea at the extreme outer edge of the great fissure 

 opposite the mouth of the cavern, where the Laminarice grow 

 from the sides of the rocks, and found it in considerable 

 abundance, and of a large size, clinging to the rocks. It 

 was only where the sea scarcely ebbs away that it occurred. 

 Some time later, I looked for it at Greenheugh Point, and 

 obtained it there also in pools, sometimes intermixed with 

 Lottia virginea. The rock here is red sandstone, that at 

 Siccar is greywacke. It probably occurs all along the coast, 

 if looked for in the proper place. 



^. Earhj departure of the Martin. By common consent 

 nearly the whole body of Martins left during the two very 

 wet and stormy weeks in the end of July. The reason 

 appeared to be that the rain washed down their nests and 

 drowned many of the recently fledged young; I observed 

 several instances of this, and was told of others. Only two 

 pairs lingered among the cliifs that had been stocked this 

 year with considerable numbers, and were not remarked 

 amidst the solitude made by the departure of so many nimble 

 wings, till the 16th of August. On the Mth of September 

 I heard the chatter of their brood, and on the 26th saw a 

 young one take its flight from the nest. The two families 

 left together about the 29th. I saw the Swift for the latest 

 on the 25th August, but did not pay attention to the swallow. 



3. Annoyance occasioned by Calandra Granaria at Aln- 

 wick. Mr. Tate in October sent me some beetles infesting 

 three cottages in Canongate, Alnwick, above which is an old 

 granary. '*Beds, walls, and furniture are covered with 

 them, and they sting like the prick of a needle." They proved 

 to be the Grain Weevil, Calandra granaria. These beetles 

 are furnished with a slender sharp proboscis, and it seems 

 they had mistaken human beings for wheat. I asked my 

 friend Mr. Bold, who has much experience about corn in 

 granaries, if he was aware of this propensity, and he writes : 

 " Our men used to say that Corn Weevils did bite, and hard 

 too." Some observations as to how the Weevil may be 

 diminished in granaries, were given by Mr. Bold in the First 

 Volume of the " Tyneside Naturalists' Club's Transactions." 

 " Experience teacheth us that there is not so good a remedy 

 to destroy the Wy veil, as is the often fanning and winnowing 

 in Summer." Barnabe Googe of Husbandrie, A.D. 1572. 



