BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS AT NORTH FAMBRIDGE 349
October 7th. Two Small Coppers on Michaelmas Daisies. 14th. Angle
Shades moths are now quite common. 25th. Three Bed Admirals and one
Small Tortoiseshell. A female Scalloped Hazel came to light, it must be
a second-brood insect.
November 1st. One perfect Red Admiral. 5th. One Silver-Y at light.
8th. Feathered Thorns in abundance. 22nd. A fresh Angle Shades to light.
Winter moths in swarms.
Considering the perfect weather prevailing from the end of June to late
September, it seems remarkable that Clouded Yellows were so scarce and
not a single Painted Lady was seen in this area. No Convolvulus Hawk-
moths were seen at the Tobacco flowers and no Death's Head Hawk-moths
larvae were found. Really a very disappointing year.
Lathridius bifasciatus Reitter, a beetle new to Essex.—On November
25th, 1954, I examined a piece of very dry, decaying fungus which I took
from the trunk of an Elm tree at Stanford-le-Hope. Among the insects in
it were two specimens of this species, which has not hitherto been recorded
for the county. The other insects present were several of each of the
beetles Mycstophilus quadripustulatus L., Dacne bipustulata Thunberg,
Nargus velox Spence and Anthobium unicolor Marsham and two specimens
of the bug Lyctocoris campestris Fab.
Lathridius bifasciatus is an introduced species of Australian origin which
was first put on the British List in 1951 by A. A. Allen, who found it in
Surrey the previous year. Since then it has been reported from several
localities in Surrey and West Kent. I have taken it from four different
Kent localities during the autumn and winter of 1955.
It should be looked for in vegetable refuse of all kinds, my specimens
being from cut grass, haystack bottoms and dead leaves and branches as
well as from decaying fungus.
E. C. Sida.
Hydra Tuba rentoni
BY L. S. HARLEY
Apropos the note from Mr. Lambert in the 1951 issue of The Essex
Naturalist, it is of interest to note that of many specimens of Hydra
Tuba rentoni which were ''planted" in the Thames Estuary by Mr.
Lambert in the early 1930's (see E.N. 25, p.70), none appears to have
survived to establish the species in these Essex waters; prolonged search
by Mr. Lambert in recent years has failed to discover a single specimen.
Those formerly kept in captivity by Mr. Lambert at Leigh have now all
died, and no more specimens have been received. It seems likely that the
only existing photograph of this minute species of Hydra Tuba is the one
which I took in 1934 and part of which is reproduced at a magnification of
6 diameters in the adjoining plate. For comparison, a group of Hydra Tuba
Cyanea (the fairly common large stinging jelly fish) is illustrated at 4X
magnification, taken by me on the same occasion in 1934.