36 BR. J. ENT. NAT. HIST., 7: 1994 



SHORT COMMUNICATION 



Xyleborus saxesenii (Ratzeburg) (Coleoptera: Scolytidae) new to Cornwall. — A single 

 live specimen of Xyleborus saxesenii was found beneath the bark of a large beech 

 trunk section lying in Higginsmoor Wood on the Lanhydrock Estate in E. Cornwall, 

 16.iii. 1993. The beech lay alongside a well-used public path and had presumably been 

 felled for "public safety" reasons. This is a new county record and a further extension 

 of the known range. The nearest records known to me are from Gloucestershire (Atty, 

 1983), Cornwall (Duff, 1993) and in the far east of Dorset — Cranborne Chase (Pearce, 

 1926) and Wareham in 1991 (T. Winter, pers. comm.). It is clearly rare in these counties. 



Higginsmoor Wood is a large area of oak- and beech-dominated woodland on the 

 alluvial flats of the Fowey River. It appears to be ancient woodland and is therefore 

 a rare example of ancient alluvial floodplain woodland — a type which has been 

 extensively cleared for agriculture over the millennia throughout the British Isles. 



Beech is believed not to be native in Cornwall, and the old beech of this particular 

 estate undoubtedly originate from landscape plantings in the early 18th century. 

 Although the favoured tree of X. saxesenii (in my experience, at least), this scolytid 

 does also breed in a wide range of other tree species, and so its presence here does 

 not contradict its recognized association with ancient woodland and pasture-woodland 

 (Harding & Rose, 1986). The same beech timber also contained the beetles Cerylon 

 ferrugineum Steph. and Cylindronotus laevioctostriatus (Goeze), and the bug Xylocoris 

 cursitans (Fall.). Another scolytid, Dryocoetinus villosus (F.), was abundant in the 

 thick bark of a fallen oak branch close by, and I took a single specimen of Selatosomus 

 bipustulatus (L.) on a riverside oak here in 1989. All of these appear to be good 

 indicators of ancient woodland and pasture-woodland in Cornwall (Alexander, 1991, 

 1993), although only the last is recognized as such for Britain as a whole (Harding 

 & Rose, 1986). 



My thanks to Tim Winter for his comments on an earlier draft of this note. — K. N. A. 

 Alexander, National Trust, 33 Sheep Street, Cirencester, Gloucestershire GL7 1QW. 



References 



Alexander, K. N. A. 1991. The fauna of dead and decaying timber in Cornwall. Zoological 



Cornwall and the Isles of Stilly 1: 22-25. 

 Alexander, K. N. A. 1993. The deadwood fauna of Cornwall. Br. J. Ent. Nat. Hist. 6: 97-101 . 

 Atty, D. B. 1983. Coleoptera of Gloucestershire. Cheltenham, privately published. 

 Duff, A. 1993. Beetles of Somerset: their status and distribution, Taunton, Som. Arch. Nat. 



Hist. Soc, pp270. 

 Harding, P. T. & Rose, F. 1986. Pasture woodlands in lowland Britain. Institute of Terrestrial 



Ecology. 

 Pearce, E. J. 1926. A list of the Coleoptera of Dorset. Dorset Fid Club Proc. 47: 51-128. 



BOOK NOTICE 



A review of the scarce and threatened Coleoptera of Great Britain. Part 2, by 



P . S . Hyman and M . Parsons , Peterborough , JNCC , 1 994, 248 pages , paperback ,£15 + 

 £3 p. & p. — Families covered in this volume are: Cryptophagidae, terrestrial Hydrophilidae, 

 Lathridiidae, Leiodidae, Nitidulidae, Pselaphidae, Ptiliidae, Scydmaenidae, Sphaeridiidae 

 and Staphylinidae. There are also several pages of addenda to part 1 . The beetles con- 

 tained in this part of the review are the 'difficult' groups, and a footnote to every page 

 states that the statuses of the species are open to debate because of the difficulty of identi- 

 fication. Nevertheless this is an extremely valuable and welcome book which, together 

 with part 1 , serves as a basis from which coleopterology in Britain can move forward. 



