In Southern Rhodesia conditions are better than in most other parts of Africa for gathering information concerning the distribution of tsetse in the past, and perhaps even in the present. This is due to a combination of two factors, namely, that only one species of tsetse, Glossina morsitans, is found within our borders, and that the territory, in comparison with the Central African States, contains and has contained a relatively large European population. The first factor eliminates the possibility of confusion of species in connexion with the evidence forthcoming, at least in the case of those able to distinguish tsetse from other species of bloodsucking flies, whilst the second provides a more reliable source of information than the native.

These experiments were performed in response to a question submitted to me from the Royal Sanitary Institute. The point at issue was the possibility of eggs of the common bed-bug, Cimex lectularius, surviving the process of house-destruction, when the plaster from old walls, on which eggs had been laid, was broken down and remixed with fresh mortar for making the partitions of rooms in new tenements; such survival having been given as an explanation for previously unoccupied houses being infested with bugs.

The English specimens listed below were captured on wild examples of the brown rat by the author, and those from Scotland by Waterston. Several of these mites have already been recorded by Dr. A. C. Oudemans and other authors as occurring on this host. Only three of the species (Laelaps echidninus, Notoedres muris and Myobia ensifera) can be regarded with certainty as being practically restricted to Mus norvegicus, but this is possibly also the case with Haemogamasus oudemansi, which so far has only been found on this host. The other species are frequently found on other mammals or in their nests, especially in that of the mole (see Oudemans, Acarologisches aus Maulwurfsnestern, Arch. Naturg. Berlin, 1913).

The following nine new species of Culicidae have recently been received by the Imperial Bureau of Entomology; the types have been presented to the British Museum.

This species was first described by Dönitz from specimens taken in Sumatra. About the same time Theobald had prepared from Malayan specimens the description of an Anopheline species for which he proposed the name ocellatus, but recognising that Dönitz' kochii and his own ocellatus were the same species he published his description as that of Anopheles kochii, Dönitz.

The mosquito fauna of Egypt appears to have received very little attention hitherto, and very few species have been recorded from this country up to the present.

The following list of species is based chiefly on the collection of the Ministry of Agriculture, and is supplemented by references to species recorded by other observers but not taken by us. The synonymy used is that proposed by Mr. F. W. Edwards in his papers:—“ The African Species of Culex and allied Genera ” (Bull. Ent. Res., ii, p. 241, 1911); “ Further Notes on African Culicidae ” (Bull. Ent. Res., iv, p. 47, 1913); “ Key for determining the African Species of Anopheles ” (Bull. Ent. Res., iii, p. 241, 1912), excepting where the contrary is stated.

During the course of three years' estate medical work in British North Borneo, ample opportunity was found for studying the local mosquitos, and I publish the few following notes in the hope that they may be of use to other workers in Borneo.

With the increasing demand for copra all over the world for the production of coconut oil, the cultivation of coconut palms has increased enormously during the last ten years in the Solomon Islands, New Britain, Papua, Samoa, and the New Hebrides, and large areas of virgin forest have been cleared and planted on regular scientific principles. In olden times most of the nuts were collected from the native plantations, where the palms were grown under almost wild forest conditions, arid were then more hardy and did not suffer to the same extent from insect pests as do the palms planted under modern conditions. It is probable that the increased food supply, represented in the fronds of the thousands of young coconut palms planted out, has been responsible for the enormous increase of a number of indigenous leafeating beetles, which, under the conditions previously prevailing, lived upon the wild coconut and other species of palms growing in the jungle. In addition to many insect pests allied to or identical with those known in Ceylon, India, and the Malay States, we have in these Eastern islands a number of leaf-destroyers in the small flattened beetles belonging to the family Hispidae. The larvae of these beetles feed either on the upper surface, or in the tissue of the leaf under the protection of which they finally pupate, so that one can sometimes obtain the whole life-history from the egg to the perfect insect in a single palm frond. The majority of these leaf beetles, which are causing so much damage in the coconut plantations, belong to the genus Protnecoiheca, Blanchard, and from what we know of the life-history of several species that have become serious pests, it is fairly safe to assume that the habits of all the species are similar.

Very nearly allied to B. scutellaris, Bezzi (Memoirs of the Indian Museum, iii, 1913, p. 98, pl. viii, fig. 10), but differing in its smaller size, black face, differently coloured scutellum and unicolorous wings. This last character distinguishes it at once from any other Oriental species of this genus at present known.

The following systematic work was carried out in the Entomological Department of the British Museum and is based on material in the National Collection. An endeavour has been made to extend the area of the field usually covered by the systematist in his search for characters, although the author ia well aware how far short of the ideal in this matter the paper falls. The species described are:—

In this paper four new species of Phlebotomus are described, three from Africa and one from the Malay States, and the differential characters and affinities of seven other known species are described and illustrated. Three specimens, including one of P. minutus, Rond., and two of P. papatasii (Scop.), have been observed to possess supernumerary spines on the superior claspers: a remarkable and apparently hitherto unrecorded phenomenon in this genus. In several instances fresh data are given as to the geographical distribution of these insects, and an endeavour has been made to clear up some confusion with regard to certain closely allied species.

In January 1912, the writer collected in Trinidad, B.W.I., what is in all probability Pseudaonidia fossor, Newst. (Bull. Ent. Research, iv, p. 308, 1914). The insects occurred on the twigs of a plant that has been determined as Ficus comosa. The leaves of the same plant were heavily infested on the under surface by what is probably Aspidiotus personatus, Comst.