268 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
Cimex Hirundinis at Little Baddow—A New County Record.—
Following the destruction of some unoccupied nests of House Martin
during the redecoration of "Sunnymead" in June last, an invasion of
some strange insects inside the house, on the staircase, led to specimens
being sent to Mr. Hugh Main, who identified them, provisionally, as Cimex
hirundinis, a parasitic bug of the House Martin. The identification has
been confirmed by the expert entomologists of the Natural History
Museum, who state that this is the first record of the occurrence of this
bug in Essex : of general occurrence on the Continent, it has hitherto
been recorded in Britain only from Norfolk, Cambridge, Kent, Surrey,
Hants, Devon and Glo'ster, and from Ireland. From personal experience
I can confirm Bacot's statement that the creature, when given the
opportunity, feeds upon human blood.—F. W. Thorrington.
Weeley Barracks.—In the "Water Supply of Essex," the Geological
Survey memoir by Whitaker and Thresh, the Rev. W. B. Clarke's valuable
paper of 1840 is quoted as referring to a well at Weeley Barracks. None
such existing before the War (though the ground was occupied later),
the misleading remark was appended "must refer to Warley." Certainly
Weeley was correct, as recent records of both regions demonstrate. The
site was on the south side of the Colchester Road, some 350 yards west of
the Station road.—W. H. Dalton.
BOOK NOTICE.
The Geology of the Country around Sudbury (Suffolk), by Prof. P. G. H.
Boswell, O.B.E., D.Sc. (Geol. Surv. Memoir), 1929. Pubd. by H.M.
Stationery Office, Adastral House, Kingsway, W.C.2. 2s. net.
A small portion of the area covered by this Memoir lies in our own
county, and it has therefore a special interest for Essex geologists. Great
and Little Yeldham, Belchamp St. Paul's, Foxearth, Bulmer, Middleton,
and Gestingthorpe, all fall within the limits of the Essex district treated.
The author emphasizes the pre-Glacial age of the valley-systems in
the district concerned, and he adduces convincing grounds for this con-
tention, which are equally valid in the case of other of our Essex river-
valleys.
A new 1-inch colour-printed map (Sheet 206) illustrates the memoir.