The method of poisoning flies by the exposure of solutions of sodium arsenite and sugar is one that has been advocated by entomologists in Italy and in South Africa for some years, and yielded good results in Mesopotamia in 1916; for in hot climates, where flies come readily to sugar solutions, the use of an outdoor poison is specially valuable. But there are obvious disadvantages in using any arsenic solutions; for not only are they poisonous in themselves, but the disposal of residues is not easy, as the arsenic and sugar remain poisonous if thrown away, or if they dry on sand or soil. It would thus be useful to substitute for arsenic some compound less poisonous to man and less stable in a soluble form when thrown away.

A small number of Haematopota from the Congo were recently sent for determination to the British Museum by M. E. Roubaud of the Pasteur Institute. Among these were specimens of an interesting new species of the H. pertinens group, and as M. Roubaud was kind enough to say that the type of this species might be deposited in the British Museum, I undertook to describe it, including at the same time, at Dr. G. A. K. Marshall's request, descriptions of a few of the numerous unrecorded African species of this genus in the collections of the British Museum and the Imperial Bureau of Entomology.

The types of the species described below have been presented to the British Museum (Natural History) by Mr. H. H. King, Government Entomologist, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, by whom coloured figures of both species will shortly be published in the forthcoming Fourth Report of the Wellcome Tropical Research Laboratories, Khartoum.

Having taken part as a volunteer in the great yellow fever epidemic of 1905 in New Orleans, I was later in the same year sent by the Colonial Office to enquire into yellow fever in British Honduras and the adjacent Central American Republics.

Since the publication of my paper dealing with the taxonomic characters of the genital armature of the males of all the then known species of tsetse-flies* Mr. E. E. Austen has very kindly allowed me to examine a paratype of his Glossina medicorum; and Mr. Guy A. K. Marshall, on behalf of the Entomological Research Committee (Tropical Africa), has submitted to me the specimen of G. tabaniformis, Westwood, upon which Mr. Austen based his re-description† of the male of this species. I am extremely indebted to these gentlemen for giving me the opportunity of making a microscopical examination of these insects, as thereby it has enabled me to complete my observations on the male armature of the tsetse-flies, and also to complete the set of drawings illustrative of the main morphological characters of these organs.

In October of last year the Acting Game Warden of Uganda, Mr. G. Maitland Warne, forwarded to one of us some newspaper cuttings that he had received from Dr. E. Warren, Director of the Natal Museum. These cuttings, from the Natal Mercury of 1st, 25th and 30th August, set forth an interesting correspondence about the tsetse-fly problem in Zululand, and embodied practical suggestions for control of the fly on a large scale. Some time before, Mr. Cooper, of Cooper's Dip fame, had visited us at Entebbe and discussed the possibility of carrying out experiments on the effect of feeding tsetse on animals regularly dipped in arsenical solutions, the question having been raised in South Africa whether dipping might not prove to be a practical means of controlling fly. At the time of Mr. Cooper's visit it was not possible to undertake the investigations desired, but the arrival of Mr. Warren's communication found us in a better position.

In the banana-producing area of north-eastern Colombia and in certain parts of Central America, the skins of the banana fruits are sometimes attacked by insects, which gnaw the epidermal tissues and cause unsightly, blackened scars. In some districts so much fruit is thus affected that the matter has become of considerable economic importance; measures intended to reduce the injury have been initiated and studies of the causal organisms commenced.

The Tachinid fly parasite of Diatraea saccharalis, F. (sugar-cane moth borer), which forms the subject of the present paper, was described in 1916 by Dr. C. H. T. Townsend1 under the name Euzenilliopsis diatraeae. In 1924, Dr. J. M. Aldrich6 pointed out that Dr. Townsend's new genus was untenable and referred E. diatraeae to Lixophaga, Towns., of which Euzenilliopsis, Towns., is now considered a synonym. In certain of the earlier papers in which this fly is mentioned as a parasite of D. saccharalis, it is referred to as Tachinophyto (Hypostena) sp.

Amongst a number of larvae collected in the Yokeskei River, about twelve miles from Johannesburg, on 31.v.1928, two were found which appeared to be new. These subsequently pupated and finally hatched, one on 15.vi.1928 and the other on 18.vi. 1928. The adults were seen to be Anopheles argenteolobatus, Gough. Repeated collecting after this has failed to reveal further specimens. Larvae of the following mosquitos were found in the same pool: Anopheles squamosus, A. cinereus, A. rufipes, Culex salisburiensis, and C. theileri.

Belonging to the Ortheziinae. Antennae four-segmented, situated on low tubercles; eyes well developed and situated close to but not fused with the base of antenna. Tibia and tarsus distinct, tibia exceedingly short compared with tarsus. Larva with antennal and limb characters of adult. Genotype O. reynei, sp. n.

In 1939 I dealt with two species of Ephialtes which parasitise the codling moth, Cydia pomonella, L., namely E. caudatus, Ratz., and E. crassiseta, Thoms., and showed how they differed from E. punctulatus, Ratz. (=extensor, Tasch.) with which species they had formerly been confused. During 1940, F. J. Simmonds, of the Imperial Institute of Entomology, sent to the British Museum a series of a species of Ephialtes bred from this same host in the south of France. This is a new species, and it was previously known to me only from a single female which had been bought by D. S. Wilkinson from O. Schmiedeknecht, who had incorrectly named it Pimpla roborator, F. In fact, this new species does not belong to the same species group as Ephialtes (Exeristes) roborator, F., Grav. (=Pimpla roborator, F., Schmied.), which is a well-known parasite of the European Corn Borer (Pyrausta nubilalis, Hb.) and also parasitises many other hosts.

As there has been considerable confusion in the synonymy and interpretation of E. roborator, F., it seems advisable to give notes on the relevant type specimens seen by me. It has been impossible to find the type of Ichneumon roborator, F. Gravenhorst's interpretation of this very variable species has therefore been taken. The description given by Schmiedeknecht in his Opuscula Ichneumonologica is adequate for the recognition of the female ; the male is very distinct, having a tubercle in the middle of the clypeus, a character unknown in any other described European species. Pimpla cicatricosa, Ratz., which is given by Schmiedeknecht as a synonym of P. roborator, F., is a distinct species.

The Lygaeid bug described below has been well known as a pest of strawberries in Tasmania for a long time, both Thompson (1895) and Lea (1908) having given particulars of its activities under the name of the “Strawberry Bug.” Lea mentions that it also occurs in Victoria and New South Wales, but as it belongs to cosmopolitan genus with a world-wide distribution, it is possible that the Tasmanian species is distinct.

The timing of critical events like mating, migration, and development has noticeably and recently shifted in many populations of diverse organisms. Here, we report a change in the breeding phenology of giant waterbugs, Belostoma flumineum Say (Heteroptera, Belostomatidae), in the northeastern United States. Waterbugs collected in 2005 and 2006 exhibited previously typical patterns of mating and reproduction: two annual reproductive peaks in which overwintered adults mated in the spring and young adults from a new generation mated in the fall. In 2012 and 2015, despite similar sampling effort, we detected no fall breeding activity in the study area. Reproductive behaviour under controlled laboratory conditions was also different between the earlier (2005 and 2006) and recent (2012 and 2015) years: waterbugs collected in recent years exhibited significant delays in reproduction (>30 days) under similar photoperiod and thermal conditions. We discuss potential causes of this dramatic change in reproductive behaviour, such as climate change, as well as possible negative impacts of the absence of fall reproduction on populations of B. flumineum in the study region.