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THE ESSEX NATURALIST
NORTH-EAST ESSEX EDUCATIONAL FELLOWSHIP
Natural History Group
MEETTNGS are held at St. John's Green School, Colchester, on the
first Monday of each month at 6 p.m. under the chairmanship of
Mr. Hull, Curator of the Colchester Museum.
Field meetings of varied character are held each month. In winter they
are usually on the estuaries to watch ducks, geese, and waders. In summer,
butterflies and flowers are studied in the woodlands and on the marshes,
the sea coast is visited for marine work and in the autumn a fungus foray is
held. During the winter well-known naturalists give lectures and show films
at the Group meetings.
The Natural History Group is affiliated to the Essex Field Club and
members of this Club are always welcome to the indoor and field meetings
of the Group.
Among the Group's interesting records for the past season are the
following:
Amsinckia angustifolia, an alien flowering plant new to Essex, found
in a cornfield at Lawford. The plant was in flower from May to
July 1950.
Boletus parasiticus, a fungus found for the first time at Dodnash, near
East Bergholt.
Fulmar were seen over the coast near Harwich during October.
A number of other records have been contributed to the Essex Field Club
files for use in future publications.
Hon. Secretary : Mrs. E. M. Long, Windways, Milton Road, Lawford,
near Manningtree, Essex.
JELLYFISH IN CAPTIVITY
IN 1936 (Essex Nat., 25, pp. 70-86) Mr. F. J. Lambert wrote an interesting
and informative account of the jellyfish to be found off the Essex coast
and gave many details of his study of these creatures. Much of this study
was carried out on specimens kept in captivity and the knowledge thus
gained was supplemented by planting the jellyfish polyps in pools on the mud
flats, 1/4 mile from shore, where they were studied with great perseverance
by the writer throughout several severe winters.
In 1938 Mr. Lambert recorded his capture of the larval form of Cerianthus
off Southend and described its progress in captivity during the ensuing
summer (Essex Nat., 26, pp. 131-3).
We now hear of the progress of the creatures which were described so
many years ago. Mr. Lambert writes :
The Aurelia Type 1 (Essex Nat., 25, Plate IV) are still alive in the
gallon glass jar in which they were spawned by a Cyanea in 1926.
None of these hydra tubae has ever seen the sea in the twenty-four years
they have survived captivity.
The Type II stock died out in 1949 after twenty-one years of con-
finement in most unnatural conditions partly caused by my prolonged
illness in 1948.