10 DISCOVERY OF THE MALE OF PRESTWICHIA
Harwich, Stutton, and Weeley may also be pre-Carboniferous. Another
advantage of Southern Essex is that it is much nearer the Dover coal-field,
which may extend in that direction, and we understand that it is proposed to put
down several borings between Dover and Chatham. At the same time we
are by no means disposed to under-value trial further northward, near the
Norfolk and Suffolk border, as at Yarmouth.
'' Any coal-fields which may occur beneath the surface rocks of Suffolk or
Essex are, in all probability, small, and thrown into detached basins like those
of Bristol and the Forest of Dean, or like that at Burford, on the Western
border of Oxfordshire, which is certainly isolated, though its size is unknown,
because, as in the Eastern Counties, the surface rocks are of much later date.
Consequently only a series of borings can establish the existence and position
of any coal basins under the Eastern Counties. And their probable small
size and isolation evidently makes it better to bore at distances of from 10 to
20 miles apart, which would hardly allow the existence of a small coal-field
like that of the Forest of Dean to remain undetected, rather than to make
trials at intervals of 30 or 40 miles, which would not test any district
satisfactorily."
We are pleased to say that by the kindness of Mr. G. F.
Mansell, F.LS., the Secretary to the Association, a set of
specimens from the Weeley Boring (see E.N., ix., p. 254) have
been sent to the Club's Museum for preservation with the set
previously received from the Stutton Boring through the courtesy
of Mr. William J. Graham.
DISCOVERY OF THE MALE OF PRESTWICHIA
AQUATICA IN EPPING FOREST.
By FREDERICK ENOCK, F.L.S., F.E.S.
[Read December 12th, 1896.]
There are few Entomologists who cannot look back upon
some memorable day or night spent in Epping Forest, where
insect treasures are still to be found by these enthusiasts who are
not daunted by repeated failures, from whom that mysterious
"luck" holds aloof year after year. It is not everyone who can
take a look into a basin of pond water and find over two dozen
specimens, representing two species of insects, one of which
Prestwichia aquatica, being something "quite new" to science.
Yet this occurred to Sir John Lubbock in 18621 when he found
male and female specimens of the so-called Polynema natans, which
I have since proved to be identical with Haliday's Caraphractus
cinctus.- This parasitic Hymenopteron I have taken in several
1 Lubbock, Trans. Linn. Soc, vol. 24 (1863), p. 135.
2 Science Gossip, N.S., vol. iii., (June, 1896), p. 13.