The unusual and prolonged drought that we have experienced this year has had a marked effect upon the mosquitos. So much so, that while last year I found no difficulty in obtaining any of the eleven species which so far have been found to exist in this locality, yet for many weeks now it has been impossible to obtain any but a few Anopheles maculipennis (adults), Anopheles bifurcatus (larvae), Culicella morsitans (larvae, pupae, and adults), and Culex pipiens (larvae, pupae and adults).

Through the kindness of Professor E. O. Essig, of the University of California, I have been enabled to examine a collection of Coccidae from Formosa, made by M. Maki and S. Inamura, and also a small amount of material from Foochow, China, collected by Mr. C. R. Kellogg. It is upon this material that the present paper is for the most part based. In addition to this, I am taking advantage of the opportunity to rectify certain errors that have been made in the identification of a few species from Japan.

Several species of Bibionidae are very common in the adult state during the spring and early summer in Britain, but their larvae seem to have been very little studied. The latter frequently occur in large numbers together, and are from time to time reported to have caused damage to various crops.

This is an account of two different inquiries carried out on the same safari in the Lumbwa country of Kenya Colony early in 1920. The problems are of the same type, the suspected transmission of disease by blood-sucking flies, and the second investigation arose out of the first. It therefore seems best to deal with them both in a single paper.

Myiasis has been defined by Austen as follows:—“There remains yet a third category of flies, chiefly belonging to the great Family Muscidae, the larval stage of which is sometimes actually passed in the living human body, the presence of the larvae in the various organs and tissues, and the disorders or destruction of tissue caused thereby, being comprehensively known as Myiasis.” It will be noted that this definition only refers to the larval stages of flies, but as the eggs, and in one case at least, pupae and adults, may be found in the human body, and as myiasis is a common condition in many animals, the definition may now be amplified as follows:— The condition or conditions, resulting from the invasion of the tissues and organs of man and other animals by all the stages of the Diptera.

For some years after the intensive study of mosquitos began in tropical countries, surprisingly little interest was taken in the European species, particularly those of Northern Europe. Ficalbi had published his monographic revision in 1896–99, but from then until 1914 very little further had been done; the adults were assumed to be more or less known, though very few of the larvae had been described. Since 1914, however, a great deal of work has been done all over Europe, bionomic as well as systematic, and considerable advances have been made in every branch of our knowledge of these insects.

During the months of May and June 1921 I investigated the cause of the serious losses that had occurred among the rose-trees (especially Rosa damascena, Mill.) which are extensively grown in Bulgaria for making attar of roses. The conclusion arrived at is that the cause of the general decline in rose culture is inadequate nourishment of the plants, owing to an insufficient amount of humus and nitrogen in the soil, aggravated by the entire neglect of manuring by the growers. But the immediate cause of the death of thousands of rose-bushes has proved to be certain galls that are to be found on the stems, reaching 2–3 cm. in length and sometimes twice as thick as the normal stem.

During 1919–20 an investigation into the habits of A sterochiton (Aleurodes) vaporariorum, Westw., was being carried out at the Lea Valley Experimental Station, Cheshunt, with a view to controlling its attacks on tomatoes under glass. The station exists for the study of scientific problems connected with the glasshouse industry, and as the staff is small, the work is necessarily confined to strictly economic lines. Points that appear in the course of the investigations cannot be followed to their ultimate conclusion in these earlier years of the station's existence if they seem to be of theoretical rather than of practical importance. The following notes relate to such a problem, which it has been decided to record, though in a very unfinished state.